Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal
by Chronic Guardian
Summary: An Anthology/One-Shot Collection for the main members of Class Zero. In a world of dying memories, there are yet some things that live on.[Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid]
1. 01-Valediction for a Stranger

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[01] Valediction for a Stranger**

 _-[Ace-Izana, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 1: Reunion]_

 _Breathe_.

Smoke, tears, and blood burned down his windpipe, but he managed to gasp in enough oxygen to stave off blacking out.

 _Just breathe_.

Between tears of pain and tears of grief, he couldn't see much. That didn't mean he couldn't hear the merciless clack, clack, clack of advancing Militesi boots pounding through the cobblestone streets. His skull pulsed to their rhythm.

"Ace..."

Could it be they were tracking him? Hunting down each Dominion straggler in the area before moving on?

"Ace... where are you?"

He'd promised. If only this once, he'd promised to be the pride of the Dominion Legionaries. Izana Kunagiri, the quiet draftee who had been doing little more than hunting coeurls up until this moment, had a promise to keep.

 _Just this once..._

The pounding march came to an abrupt halt. It wasn't as far away as Izana would've hoped. The click of rifles' cocking broke out, breaking the brief moment of silence. He hoped against hope that they were pointed at something else unlucky enough to be nearby.

 _Just breathe. Close your eyes. You'll get through this. Ace needs the package. You can't die here._

"Ace..."

The bullet crack he'd been expecting didn't come.

Izana still winced. The air became electric as multiple somethings whistled through it, followed by muffled cries and heavy thuds as bodies hit the ground.

It took until Izana wet his throat with more blood-soaked saliva for him to realize he wasn't dead.

"I'm here!" Down the street, the voice of the young man Izana was looking for rang out like a lighthouse beacon cutting through fog. "I'm right here!"

 _Breathe._ Izana bit down on the pain and tried to look up. _He's here, you found him. Just a little longer_. _Breathe._

-} _Three Years Earlier_ {-

"Kweh?"

The blond boy regarded the flightless avian mount with the same tilted, curious expression it was giving him. Somehow, perhaps by the color of its plumes or the hook of its beak, he felt as though it were the wrong bird occupying the stable. He'd been here so many times on visits, he and the resident should've been able to recognize each other by now.

"You're new?" the boy asked, reaching out a hand slowly to stroke where the creature's beak met its face.

The mount, a golden yellow Chocobo, shied back and warbled a warning.

"...That's a yes, huh? Too bad."

It explained everything. He remembered coming to this stall whenever Mother took them to Akademia. The old resident must have died. He couldn't remember its name or color, but it must have lived here. Even if the Suzaku Crystal sealed away memories of the dead, it didn't catch everything. The boy knew a different Chocobo had once occupied this particular stall, if only that much. Whether it had bitten him or crooned gently at his approach, he couldn't say.

"Hey! Careful!"

The boy allowed whoever had interrupted his musings a sidelong discerning look. One of the vermilion hooded legionaries, quickly approaching and wearing a slight frown. The boy held back an impatient _tsk_. Legionaries had a track record for taking him to council on the false charges of unauthorized presence. Mother had had several talks with the Commandant about this, but the Dominion soldiers never seemed to get the memo.

"Yes?" The boy asked calmly, addressing his senior with measured respect. Depending on the answer, he could easily give or take an ounce.

"She bites," the legionary answered, moving towards the Chocobo. The young man tentatively reached out and stroked its(her?) muzzle affectionately. Contrary to his claims, it didn't seem to have any intention of tasting his fingers. Phrasing another question over his shoulder, the legionary asked, "You lost?"

"No." The boy refrained from adding how he'd been over every inch of the Peristylium Chocobo Ranch multiple times. Heck, he'd even convinced one of the stablehands to let him go out for a trot around the corral once. At any rate, _he_ wasn't the stranger in this encounter.

"Huh..." That didn't seem to satisfy the legionary very well. "Well... don't get carried away, alright? They don't take nicely to slacking off around here."

"...What?" Slacking off? The boy felt his careful indifference slip towards a frown. This was a new response.

"You're an orderly, right?"

The blond boy shook his head in negative. An orderly? One of those errand-running, junior quaestors? Sure, most kids running around Akademia at his age were orderlies, but that didn't mean _he_ was. He wasn't even wearing an orderly's uniform, for pity's sake.

Not to mention it was slightly demeaning to be compared to the non-combative merchant class when one was being raised for something much greater.

"No?" The legionary continued his friendlier-than-most pressing, putting his back to the Chocobo, but idly keeping a hand scratching just behind where her skull met her neck. "Okay then, not-an-orderly. What are you doing here then? Non-staff members aren't allowed to—"

The boy tugged at his carmine cadet scarf. "Class Zero."

"...Oh." Apparently, the statement was not lost on this particular legionary. His charcoal eyebrows rose slightly as he reevaluted the mis-identified cadet. "An Agito cadet, huh?"

"Mmhmm," the boy gave an affirmative nod and tried not to look too smug.

"An Agito cadet slacking off to get his fingers nibbled at the Chocobo ranch," the legionary continued, turning his head to the side in a vain attempt to hide a cracking smile. "You wouldn't happen to have an excuse from class for the day, would you?"

"We're on vacation," the boy sighed, again tugging at his scarf, more half-heartedly this time. Did nobody tell legionaries about Class Zero? In his head, the boy made note to ask one of his classmates about the intelligence structure of the Rubrum Army. Either that, or get Mother to write out an official visitor's permit for him.

"Well... I guess I can't be too hard on you," the legionary went on, turning his attention back to the Chocobo. The boy couldn't tell if the statement was supposed to sound sarcastic or not, but he softened his frown minutely. "After all, I was expecting a cadet when I came here."

The boy raised a sunburst eyebrow. "So you're the one assigned to the illustrious duty of catching slackers now?" At least they came equipped with manners now...

"Mmm? Oh, no. I was..." again the legionary paused and again the boy tried to figure out the young man's angle. "I was expecting my brother."

"Who's also a cadet."

"Yes."

"Who's also 'slacking off'."

"No," the legionary looked slightly offended at the insinuation. "Who should be training with his class in cavalry tactics. Guess they switched dates without me realizing it..."

The boy paused. Now that the legionary had mentioned it... "...Class Second? Navy Capes?"

"Yeah, Machina Kunagiri. You know him?"

"No, you just missed them."

"Oh..."

Again silence. And again, the boy waited to see if he would get his moment with the inheritor of his favorite stall or if he would just have to move on.

"Say... what's your name anyway?"

The boy gave a flat look. "Why? So you can write it down on your report?"

"No," the legionary (Mr. Kunagiri?) ruffled his Chocobo's feathers once more before turning back to the conversation. "So I know who's visiting Chichiri."

 _Chichiri_... it had to be the name of his mount. How had he come up with something like that? Onomatopoeia for the sound she made?

"I know," Mr. Kunagiri put in when the boy failed to respond. "It's a weird name. You can thank Machina for that."

"Hmph..." The boy grunted, allowing himself a quiet smile. Maybe Mr. Kunagiri wasn't so bad; as far as legionaries went anyway.

"Anyway, your name?"

"...Ace."

"Nice to meet you, Ace. My name is Izana."

 _Izana Kunagiri_... The boy, Ace, nodded and shook the young man's hand. Within the privacy of his mind, Ace permitted himself to let go of the thought that a previous owner, now forgotten, had once claimed this stall. From now on, Izana and Chichiri could inherit that place in his memories.

 _I hope to remember you for a long time to come_.

-} _Three Months Earlier_ {-

"You alright?"

Izana fought down his frustrated grimace and looked up. Ace, the crimson caped Agito cadet, had returned once again. Apparently, he and the rest of Class Zero trained outside of Akademia. They came to visit every now and then, but for the most part they were off with their "Mother". Izana had long implied that the woman in question was a special instructor deployed by the Council of Eight rather than an actual blood relation. Ace's classmates, who also referred to her by the affectionate familial, were too close in age to be actual siblings.

Still, they stuck together. Whenever one of them came to pull Ace away from one of his visits to the Chocobo stalls, Izana could sense a certain closeness between them. To an extent, they did operate as a family.

 _More than me, anyway_.

"It's nothing," the legionary told his young compatriot, forcing a neutral expression. "Just... I've just had a long day."

Ace tilted his head. "Hunting coeurls, right?"

Izana pursed his lips and nodded. That was his job as a legionary. Not as a first line of defense on the border, not as a garrison at the military centers of Togoreth or Eibon. No, Izana Kunagiri was simply a coeurl hunter.

"That's good," Ace's mouth compressed into a confident smile and he approached to give Chichiri his regards. "I hear they're in season this time of year. Corsi would be in trouble without you."

"...I wish I could do more."

"As a legionary? Have you tried requesting a transfer?"

"Thought about it..." _But that's not really the problem_.

Izana let the last part go unsaid. He was half convinced Ace only came to pet Chichiri (and the Chocobo certainly took no issue with that priority), so dumping all his problems on the teen probably wouldn't be the best etiquette. Instead, he just inched his back a little further against the oak beam separating the stables and let the boy have his fun. After all, there wasn't really a tactful way to put this.

What Izana really wished was that he had been strong enough to be an Agito cadet.

Well... "strong" wasn't quite the word to use in this sense. Agito Cadets had something more along the lines of inherent talent. Class Eleventh rarely engaged in manual labor, let alone combat, and Class Seventh could be classified as downright cowardly, given a blunt enough critic. No, whatever they had, it wasn't something he could train for. They had it and he didn't, and that was the end of that.

" _You weren't there_ ," Machina's accusing tone rung back in his head. " _Our family died because you were gone_. _Izana... what good is joining the army if you can't even protect that much?"_

Even if Izana felt like arguing the point that their parents might've died before that, it wouldn't have changed the circumstance. The village where Machina had been staying, and whoever he had known within its walls, had been wiped out that day.

"...I think I could help you."

"Hmm?" Izana raised his ebony brows and refocused on his current human companion. It was tempting to just tell Ace he didn't know what he was talking about, but Izana had long learned the boy possessed a certain wisdom beyond his years. Whatever was about to be said, it deserved a chance.

"You see, Mother says our first mission may happen soon; On Dominion soil, in fact. Class Zero could use some local support on the matter."

"Thank you, but...You don't have to coddle me."

"Coddle you?" A look of well humored challenge flashed over the blond's shoulder. "Think about it Izana: Agito cadets, _Class Zero_ is going to be deployed. How easy could it be? Something big is coming. I'm going to need an edge, someone I trust. Can you be that edge?"

Once Ace spelled it out like that... maybe this was the chance he was looking for. Something to prove himself, something to show Machina he wasn't a coward.

"...Alright," the legionary straightened to his feet, leaving behind his oaken moorings. "Count on me."

-} _Three Hours Earlier_ {-

"The Militesi troops have breached the city walls. Repeat, Militesi troops have breached the city walls. Large troop movements have been detected sweeping in from the south. All Dominion troops, be advised. Legionary divisions 58 and 23 reinforce forward positions. Divisions 13, 18, and 22, report to central command. 1st division—"

Izana was cinching armor onto Chichiri as the unrushed serenity of central command continued to drone orders. Imperial Dreadnoughts overtook the skies like a tessellation of geometric storm clouds. The day had come. This was what Ace had been talking about. Beneath his chestplate, Izana's heartbeat was pounding to the rush of his fellow legionaries as they moved to do what they had enlisted for. This was the day. This was his time.

And yet, it almost felt surreal. Izana didn't feel excitement to see airships blocking out the sun, dropping Magitek Armors like white lightning. His heart didn't soar to see the flag of Rubrum being marched out into the storm. Izana felt a strange hollowness as his mind desperately clung to duty and promises, automating his movements. This wasn't what he had wanted.

Minutes later, he was reporting to central command. Apparently the Empire somehow jammed the Vermillion Bird Crystal, the source of Magic and the Dominion's central military element. The Dominion forces were now being routed on the front lines, the city was lost, soon the Empire would be at the doorstep. Izana heard the words, but his mind refused to believe them. The Dominion of Rubrum was falling around him. He was here, but he was still powerless.

 _No... not entirely. You still have something to do. You've still got to help Ace._

When Izana arrived at the command center, he was told that he had been specifically selected to bring a comm set to a derelict unit that had just entered the fray: Class Zero. Somehow unaffected by the crystal's fall, they were the Dominion's last hope, and he was the wire that would connect the two.

With one last look to the spires of Akademia, Izana Kunagiri took the package and marched toward the shadows of the metal storm clouds.

-} _Three Minutes Later_ {-

" _Izana!_ " Ace forgot about the fires raging through the streets, about the invaders dropping from the sky. That would still be there in a moment. His comrade, his _friend,_ would not.

Drawing another stack of his cards, the blond cadet hurled the small rectangles at his enemies, expertly guiding their trajectory and enhancing their velocity mid-flight. Energy coursed through his veins. He felt so alive, nothing would touch him.

It didn't matter, something had already touched Izana.

 _Hurry, you idiot!_ He gritted his teeth and wove deeper into the dearth of Imperial troops circling the legionary. _There's still something you can do. You still remember him. He's not dead yet._

Ace's cheeks burned, and he wasn't sure if it was from the fires or his own frustration. It was a strange experience, realizing that someone would die, that moments from now he wouldn't remember anything about them. In a few moments, it wouldn't matter who had owned the Chocobo who inhabited his favorite stall.

By the time Ace finally made it to the legionary's side, the young man was weakly heaving ragged breaths. Tears were fighting a losing battle to clear the blood from his face. Beneath him, feathers of gold-stained-red gently ruffled. Chichiri had protected her master, even to the end.

"Ace..." the downed man croaked, extending a package to the cadet. Ace accepted it somberly. The world had grown quiet, if only in his mind.

The young man wet his lips and continued on. "...I don't want to die. Don't wanna be forgotten. Don't... don't want to go yet."

Ace clasped the man's hand and tried very hard to remember his name. He'd known it just a second ago, hadn't he? This was someone important, he was sure of it. "Hold on," he urged. Maybe if there was enough phantoma intact he could still heal the man. Maybe there was still a chance. "Just, hold on."

"Sorry... Ace. Looks like... maybe I wasn't cut out for this... after all..."

Ace. The man knew his name. They had to have known each other. Ace tried to keep his breath steady as he realized the face he was looking at was not familiar.

"...Ace... will I see you... on the... other side?"

"Hold on, you're not going anywhere. You're alright."

"Sorry... we all... say goodbye sometime."

}-{

Ace paused. Tears were running down from his eyes, but he didn't know why. A soldier lay dead at his feet. The soldier had probably served his unit well, probably fought valiantly for the cause of the Dominion. Whoever he was, Ace could only wonder who had forgotten him when he had died. Still he felt a certain connection.

"I'll finish this for you," Ace said quietly. "Don't worry, I'll protect the ones who lost you."

Turning from the scene, the crimson caped cadet moved on. The streets of Rubrum were red with the blood of strangers. Though he would never know them, the first of Class Zero was determined that they at least be avenged.

In his own way, he would remember.

 **-}End [01]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _So, as someone who has been waiting nine years for Type-0, I feel like this fan fiction was a long time coming. At the same time, I'm kind of hesitant about this just because Type-0 deals with really heavy themes and I'm... not usually a very heavy writer. If anyone was wondering, no this isn't a direct translation of the opening scene and connected material, this is an alternate cycle of the events that still played out similarly. I will probably contradict the in game interpretation of universe rules in favor of my own interpretations as this anthology goes on (such as Ace slowly forgetting the dying Izana rather than all at once), but I hope you can still enjoy these thoughts on the twelve who have finally arrived outside Japan this year (well, twelve plus two. But Machina and Rem won't get the same focus in this collection that the numbered members of Class Zero get)._

 _Finally, as you may have noted from the tag, this is the first entry in my Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid anthology! For better written stories and more intelligent authors, please drop by the Twelve Shots of Summer C2 or, if you're interested in a summer challenge, check out the forum and see if it's your cup of tea._

 _Thanks for reading. See you again?_

 _-CG_

 ** _Visitor's Atlas_** (For those who need to catch their bearings in the land of Orience)

 **Dramatis Personae:**

 **-Class Zero:**

The main protagonists of Final Fantasy Type-0(Agito XIII), Class Zero is a group of children raised by Doctor Arecia Al-Rashia of the Rubrum Sorcery department. From early childhood, they have been training together as siblings and all follow Doctor Al-Rashia, whom they call "Mother", without question. Currently, they are engaged in liberating Rubrum under Mother's orders. With the exception of two new members added to the class after their battlefield debut, each member is named after a card deck trump.

 **01-Ace** : Ace is a serious young man and generally considered the operational leader of the group in battlefield operations. While he is usually calm and professional, he is not above personal outbursts given the right circumstances. He fights with an enchanted card deck.

 **02-Deuce:** If there were an official position for it, Deuce would be the face of public relations for Class Zero. Deuce is polite, honest, and maybe even a little timid at first glance. Beneath that shrinking violet exterior though, she has a strong sense of duty and refuses to back down once she's made up her mind. She fights with an enchanted flute.

 **03-Trey:** Trey is the resident marksman in Class Zero and has a nearly encyclopedic knowledge on virtually every subject. What began as a study of possible pressure points had launched the archer into a life-long pursuit of holistic knowledge. Unfortunately, there are very few willing to hang around and listen to his findings, no matter how fascinating they may seem. He fights with a long bow.

 **04-Cater:** Cater is a headstrong firecracker who doesn't give a &%$! what the rest of the world thinks. She relies on her intuition and Mother's orders to see her through and forgets the rest. While she is eager to press on and forget the past, she is haunted by a sense of deja-vu. She fights with a magicite pistol.

 **05-Cinque:** Something of an oddball, anyone would agree that Cinque is a little... different. While she often seems lacking in common sense and sequential thought though, Cinque is able to offer insights others miss every once in a while. She's also fond of giving nick-names. She fights with a mace.

 **06-Sice:** Sice is often picked out as the most brooding member of Class Zero. She's cynical, detached, and about as far as you can get from being a people person. Once you get to know her, she's still a lot of those things, but she also carries a strong sense of justice behind her jaded views. She fights with a giant scythe.

 **07-Seven:** Seven is the oldest member of Class Zero and possibly one of the most senior. She's third in the command chain and prefers a supporting role in most situations. She has quite a following outside of Class Zero and is said to be the most well connected due to her philanthropic, but not overbearing, nature. She fights with a chain whip.

 **08-Eight:** Calm and serious, Eight is thoughtful and loathe to rush through a situation without fully understanding it. While certainly one of the most able members on the battlefield, Eight is recorded as one of the least lethal as he has been working on a technique to defeat enemy soldiers without killing them. Eight is a martial artist and fights with his body as his weapon.

 **09-Nine:** If it weren't for his connections to Class Zero, Nine probably would've quit school a long time ago. Not one for long thought, Nine prefers to view the world through a binary lens where everything is either one thing or another. While he puts on a tough guy act, it's usually pretty obvious that he still needs affirmation of his "manly" image, much to his disgruntled classmates' dismay. He fights using a spear.

 **10-Tiz:** Not a current member of Class Zero. The Ten slot is said to have once belonged to a solemn girl with a delicate sense of authority about her. The current whereabouts of this member, as well as why the slot remains unfilled, are both unknown.

 **11-Jack:** The class clown, Jack doesn't let the weight of responsibility drag him down too much. A team player who is always looking to brighten everyone's day, Jack makes it his goal in life to bring as many smiles to the world as possible, whether they like it or not. He fights with a katana.

 **12-Queen:** A stoic swordswoman with great intellectual capacity, Queen is well versed in all forms of combat and protocol and often guides her classmates through the process whenever the need arises. While she may seem stern, she has the good of her allies at heart. She fights with a longsword.

 **13-King:** From the outside, King is summed up in one word: Loner. Not one for many words, King is a man of quiet action. Secretly, he's not so good with people, but enjoys their company nonetheless. He fights with dual handguns.

 **00-Joker:** Currently an enigma, nobody knows if Joker is just a legend or a satellite member of Class Zero. Whatever he is, he isn't part of the main class and his slot remains empty for the foreseeable future.

 **?-Machina Kunagiri:** A transfer from Class Second, Machina doesn't mesh well with the rest of Class Zero and instead spends more time with Rem, his childhood friend. He is obsessively protective of her. His weapons of choice are twin rapiers.

 **?-Rem Tokimiya:** A transfer from Class Seventh, Rem is polite and innocuous to all appearances. While she does have some degree of skill on the battlefield and is a gifted mage, she also tends to break out into hacking fits and fatigues easily. She fights using twin daggers.

 **Support:** Class Zero is supported by Kurasame Susuya, their commander and current instructor. Kurasame is stoic and carries out his role with perfect professionalism, rarely betraying his growing personal attachment for his students. Kurasame keeps a Tonberry, a small mole-fish-lizard like creature, as a pet. Class Zero is also under the auspices of their very own class moogle (dubbed Moglin by Cinque) who sometimes accompanies them on the battlefield to act as their link to HQ.

Finally, the enigmatic Dr. Al-Rashia is the ultimate end-all and be-all for the original Class Zero and has their explicit trust on any and every matter. Whatever she commands, they will do.

 **Political/Military Synopsis** :

There are four governing bodies in Orience: The Militesi Empire to the West, home to the tech-based Byakko(White Tiger) peristylium; the Lorican Alliance in North, North-West Orience, keepers of the strength-based Genbu(Black Tortoise) peristylium; the Dominion of Rubrum in central Orience, resting in the magic-based Suzaku(Vermilion Bird) peristylium; and the Kingdom of Concordia in the East, guardians to the monster-based Soryu(Azure Dragon) peristylium. Each region gains the blessings of the Crystal in their respective peristylium. For example, it is not uncommon to meet seven-foot tall giants with masterfully forged weapons and armor in Lorica, just as magic is a part of every day life in Rubrum.

The ruling practices vary from country to country. Rubrum is ruled by the Consortium of Eight, headed by Chancellor Khalia Chival VI. Milites used to have an Emperor, until Marshal Cid Aulstyne conducted a coup and seized the reigns, transforming it into a military dictatorship. Lorica and Concordia are both ruled by monarchy, having their heads of state in King Gilgamesh Ashul and Queen Andoria Kaya Tranka Fam Futurio, respectively.

The majority of these stories take place during the last great crystal war in 842 AF. The Empire of Milites, under the command of Marshall Cid Aulstyne, declared war on both Lorica and Rubrum, demanding control of their respective crystals as terms for cease-fire. It is speculated that Militesi expansion was also a goal of this campaign due to tactics employed by Milites: the holdings of Rubrum, dominated by a temperate climate and ideal farm lands, were handled much more delicately than the arid nation of Lorica, which was bombed to oblivion when it resisted. What made Militesi aggression particularly notable in this case was the deploying of L'Cie on the battlefront (Militesi L'Cie Qun'mi piloted the Crystal Jammer MA _Dainsleif,_ disabling the Suzaku crystal. The armies of Rubrum, reliant upon the crystal's blessing of magic, were rendered helpless in an instant), a direct violation of the Pax Codex. Because of this special breach of conduct, the Dominion of Rubrum claimed reasonable grounds not only to deploy its legions, but the Agito Cadets training at Akademia as well. This was no longer just a war for territory as one would suspect of Milites, it was a war for the fate of Orience.

 **General Geography** :

Central Orience is dominated by the Bethnels, a range of mountains acting as a natural barrier between Lorica, Milites, and Rubrum. This does not stop Lorican heat waves from struggling over the peaks to cause thunder storms and humidity across the more temperate Rubrum holdings.

The far west is dominated by cold currents and wind patterns, causing almost all of Milites to be perennially snowy. The northern Azurr District is home to the capital city of Ingram and the center for technological development. East, alongside the Dominion border, lies the Cetme District. Over the Nesher mountains lie the coastal (but still snowy) East and West Nesher Districts, which serve as both fisheries (harvesting from the Convair and Morane coasts, respectively) and Military Outposts. It is speculated that Nesher once was its own nation, but was colonized by the more technologically advanced Milites in order to provide a steady food source for the northern districts. Finally, in southernmost Milites lies the Silent Key, a monster ridden peninsula housing an ancient technology at its far end. Few travel there who return alive.

Lorica in the north is a hardy and arid land, home to both the Berith desert and the arid Jubanla plains. Shielded from northerly winds by natural geothermal activity, the people of the Black Tortoise build their homes burrowed into the very earth for the most part. They value solidarity and are thus concentrated almost entirely in the eponymous capital: Lorica, the sunken city.

Rubrum, the dominant presence in the temperate central regions, stretches from the Meroe Region (bordering Cetme) to the Eibon Region (bordering Roshana). The northernmost North Togoreth lies across from the Concordian city of Amiter and acts as a point of trade. In between are Iscah, Togoreth, Central Rubrum, and Innsmouth. Most of these are fertile farming districts, making Rubrum either a valuable trade partner or the first target in conflict, and have given rise to a sophisticated, self reliant society. Innsmouth Coast, a southern clutch of isles that are more coastal shelf than landmass, is ill-suited to habitation due to flooding concerns but still offers rare species of Chocobo, Water Flan, and Adamantiose for Dominion use and consumption. The Dominion capital of Academia lies on an isle off the coast of Central Rubrum, near the famed brewing cities of Corsi and Aqvi. It is considered the pinnacle of societal advancement by its inhabitants.

Lastly, Concordia dominates the winding, prolonged isthmus winding to its caldera capital of Mahamayuri. Leading down this linear land are the provinces of Rilochy and Roshana, with the additional island province of Amiter, home to the Dragon Sanctuary, lying off the coast of the capital province. Many creatures lurk in the jungles of Concordia, from the various wyvern breeds to the fearsome (and flagrantly fragrant) Malboros. The people here are decisively shorter than in the other nations.

 **Lore of Orience**

"When Nine and Nine meets Nine, and the seal of creation is broken, a voice like thunder shall sound, and thou shalt know: we have arrived."

-Excerpt from the Akshiac Record.

Within the prophecies of Orience, it is said that when one country gains control of all the Crystals, Tempus Finis will begin and the land will be subject to divine judgment by the Rursan Arbiter. Fighting on behalf of the people, a savior known as Agito will be elected by trial to be tested for the worthiness of the world.

Of all the countries, Rubrum is the only one actively training Agito cadets, teenagers being brought up with the express purpose of facing the tests of the Rursan Arbiter.

 **Rubrumite Social/Operational Structure:**

Life in the Dominion is varied from town to town, but the people are generally well natured, if slightly temperamental. Located in the central lands of Orience, Rubrum has enjoyed much cultural bleed over from its neighbors and is said to be the steady medium between the technologically driven Militesi and the strictly traditional Concordians. The capital city of AKademia generally acts as the cultural center for the developed world and is quite the spectacle to behold. There are a handful of stongholds scattered throughout the dominion, notably Limbo, Togoreth, and Eibon, that also act as military hubs but all tactical maneuvers can be traced back to the Consortium at Akademia.

While many Rubrumites are perfectly content living agrarian lives, a good portion of children apply at Academia every year for admission into the Cadet program and other state sponsored positions. Agito cadets are selected via performance test, written test, and interview (although some prospects that slip through this screening might surprise you) and are divided into twelve classes, each representing a different philosophy for achieving Agito. There is also a legendary thirteenth class, Class Zero, who are only chosen by the Sorcery Department's Doctor Al-Rashia. Graduation from a cadet class is said to set one up for much success in life, so even students who aren't necessarily interested in becoming Agito apply anyway.

The classes are distinguished by scarfs/capes of distinct color. The listings are:

Class 0: Specialist Class, Red Capes.

Class 1: Knight Class, Blue Capes.

Class 2: Dragoon Class, Indigo Capes.

Class 3: Black Mage Class, Violet Capes.

Class 4: Geomancer Class, Ochre/Orange Capes.

Class 5: Monk Class, Yellow Green/Light Green Capes.

Class 6: Time Mage Class, Deep Green Capes.

Class 7: White Mage Class, Pink Capes.

Class 8: Thief Class, Yellow Capes.

Class 9: Ninja Class, Brown Capes.

Class 10: Scholar Class, Black Capes.

Class 11: Professor Class, White Capes.

Class 12: Blue Mage Class, Turquoise/Teal capes.

Cadets aren't the only ones to train at Akademia though, Dominion Legionaries, the main unit of the Dominion army, also use the island as a base of operations and sometimes train alongside the cadets, sharing facilities with them. Serving this community is an infrastructure of Orderlies, child messengers and supply specialists in training to become Dominion Quaestors.


	2. 02-Secrets

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[02]Secrets**

 _-[Deuce, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 2: Behind the Mask]_

There was a disorienting buzz in the Akademia Ready Room, and it wasn't because she'd had a shot of Corsi liquor. War hadn't made them silent, but it did encourage a round of heated conversations, some at civil volumes, others rising considerably above that. They'd pushed back the enemy from the Rubrum capital region, but it was only the beginning of the reconquest. Brothers, sisters, cousins, and parents were still in the far reaches of the Dominion enduring who-knew-what under the Milites occupation forces. The rush of securing the Suzaku nest had sunk into grim determination after the battle of Togoreth and the glare of the Militesi White Tiger was again brooding in the back of many minds.

To tell the truth, Deuce didn't mean to be there; she had actually come to fetch her classmate. They had an after-hours briefing with their CO scheduled and Jack, the consummate class clown, was unsurprisingly MIA. As the least senior member of Class Zero, it was quickly delegated to Deuce to retrieve him from his usual haunt of the in-house tavern. So far, the mission was being met with limited success.

"Don' know jack 'bout a 'Jack'," an intoxicated Legionary slurred back, before huffing a chuckle at his own play on words. "Maybe we lost'em back when Togoreth wen' up in flames. Better jus' stop lookin' an' have a drink... Tha's what _I_ say!"

Deuce decided against pointing out that neither of them would remember the cadet in question if he'd expired in the last conflict and moved on to a white caped Class Eleventh cadet. With any luck, the 'Professor' title held by the class was more than just a naming scheme.

"Jack?" The cadet, a younger girl with darker skin and short brown hair caught up in a high-ponytail, frowned and rolled her eyes back, as if the ceiling would be able to tell her. "He's a member of Class Zero, right? The only crimson cape I've seen tonight had a few good laughs at the counter before heading back to the card tables."

Deuce tried to forgive the closing details in advance before thanking the cadet and pushing her way through saloon style doors to a deeper chamber of the tavern. She'd never actually been this far back before (she'd only stepped into the Ready Room twice, both times in the full daylight hours and only long enough to grab a quick bite before heading out again), but it wasn't as bad as she was half expecting. Groups of students huddled around circular tables as easy banter, laughter, and occasionally the slamming of fists on wood filled the air. Jack, his golden hair still fluffed up like Chocobo plumage, was taking his fill of the former, two feet propped up on the table and a clutch of cards in his hand.

Still, it only took a brief clearing of her throat for the boy to take notice, glance at the clock, and make to join her. Albeit, he fanned his hand out and swept a neat portion of gil from the center of the table before doing so, but the important thing was that he didn't resist. Deuce didn't care if she had to get serious about this, but she preferred things stayed low-key if possible.

Then, just before Jack could reach her side...

"Hey..."

Deuce tried to keep her eyes forward right up until she realized the room was looking her way.

 _What?_ _I didn't say any... oh!_ The speaker had to be behind her. Slowly turning around, Deuce braced herself for whatever was blocking her exit.

It was the legionary she'd talked to earlier, no closer to sobriety and looking directly at her. Well... directly at her feet now, but his address was clearly not pointed at any of the sitting occupants of the room.

In her mind, Deuce considered how far she was willing to let this go before the use of force became a necessity.

"I been thinkin'... bout losin' people..." the legionary went on, leaning his weight on one arm against the door post while making vague circles with the other. Behind her, Deuce could hear the room quieting for the impromptu speech of the evening. "I mean... 's different for you Class Zero guys... you're all named numbers, so of course you'd notice'f a guy went missing. But..." the man paused to fight (and lose) against a hiccup. "... but y'know? The res' of us soldiers... we don' know when we lose somebody. Hell, we barely know when we kill somebody. We see things tryin' to kill us so we kill 'em first. But... but even those things have memories somewhere, right? Even the..."

The man trailed off and frowned down a belch, containing the ethanol in a brief bulge of his throat "...The beer's good tonight..."

With the anticlimactic ending put down in words, the man swooned low almost in a mock bow as he rallied himself and headed back towards the counter in the other drink. A new round of laughter erupted behind Deuce and the room was quickly filled with talking and general merriment again.

Deuce didn't move until Jack nudged her in the arm.

"C'mon," he said with an easy smile, nodding towards the exit. "You didn't come find me so we could both be late did you? Commander Kurasame's probably gonna fry my guts if we keep him waiting any longer."

"...What do you suppose it's like?"

"Huh?"

"Losing people. He said we don't understand. What do you... I mean... if you really knew you lost someone... Do you think we're—"

"—Thinking too much? Yes," Jack cut her off, but in his smooth, non-threatening way that showed he was only doing it to keep them out of trouble. "Trust me, Deuce; ignorance is bliss. Look at me! Do you see a happier guy in the room?"

"I... I guess." It was true; even Jack's rather abysmal grades in class failed to deter his impish grin. "But, don't you think—?"

"Listen, you're as innocent as they come, Deuce, so don't go rushing in and spoiling it. We do what Mother says and we'll all be okay, right? No point in making this harder than it needs to be.

"Now seriously, come on. I'll tell ol' grate face I kept you waiting."

Still caught on the quandary of the legionary, Deuce silently nodded and followed.

When they reported in for the meeting, Deuce took full responsibility for her absence and continued to contemplate the ramifications of war straight through the rest of the session.

}-{

"The legionaries always complain, don't let it get to you."

"But what if he's right?"

Cater dropped her fawn-like canter and squeezed off a shot before continuing her conversation with the observing Deuce. "Look... does it matter? They don't care about us and we just barely care about them. It's more important that we—hold on."

Performing an evasive slide, Cater narrowly missed a bullet aimed for her shoulder. It was impressive that the girl could multitask like this in the middle of a combat simulation. Deuce had been allowed the illustrious honor of sitting in on this particular session as her classmate burned through waves of phantasmal Militesi soldiers. Apparently it was a direct order from Mother.

Deuce looked down at her hands and frowned. _Are they really that worried?_ While pulling strings for Class Zero was sort of something Mother just did, Cater usually hated distractions from training. The ginger haired spit fire lived by the "shoot first, ask later" maxim down to the letter, and the asking usually got written off as irrelevant by the time she was done shooting. In short, Cater didn't like to be bothered with thinking things out, so the very fact that she was sparing _any_ thought for Deuce meant something was off.

"Anyway..." The older girl sighed, lining up three clean shots that sent her opponents reeling back, smoke spilling from the remains of their faces. Deuce surmised Cater had been using fireshot.

 _What does fireshot feel like, I wonder?_ The thought gave Deuce a light shiver.

"It's like this: we're not supposed to care," Cater pressed, her voice taking a bit of a strained edge. "You, me, and the others? We're training to become Agito. We're gonna save the world. If ya ask me, memories of what could have been, that's all just stuff to hold you back. Our job's too important to let what other people lose get in the way. We all lose stuff, y'know? But if the world doesn't have an Agito by the time of Tempus Finis..." Cater tilted back her magicite pistol and sprayed a fuchsia rain of energy fragments over the newest wave of illusory aggressors. "...then it's game over for everyone. You wanna help people? Then we gotta do our job."

Deuce fidgeted. "But what are we saving if everyone's dead by the time we become Agito?"

"We're saving us, dummy," Cater put in pointedly. "You're a person too. Besides, it's not like we'll remember—"

The ginger haired girl was cut off as a simulated bullet hit her between the eyes. Her expression froze in fury laced shock and she staggered a few steps backward before she slipped to a sit and her eyes fluttered closed.

It was only the fact that the shot hadn't actually killed the girl that allowed Deuce's stomach to churn at the morbidly ironic memory later.

}-{

Among the limited yet diverse ranks of Class Zero, Deuce's chosen method of combat was an exceptional oddity. While most members were weapons specialists fit to inspire awe at their very sight, most enemy soldiers laughed at their good fortune when they found out Deuce only had a flute. Not a sword, not a lance, not even cards like Ace. No, just a flute. Anyone who hadn't seen her in action could be forgiven a smirk and a snide comment or two if they thought it implied she was the weak link.

What most people didn't realize was that harmonic dissonance was painful to more than the ears when amplified with magic.

It wasn't a very precise way to kill someone. While someone like Jack made an art of performing a kill in a single stroke, Deuce often had to resort to a long, if effective, strategy of layering tone clusters until the target broke on their delicate inside.

Of course, it was only when she was alone that she directly attacked her enemies. As a bearer of enchanted battle lays, Deuce was more than happy to operate as a support unit when the option was available. With Deuce invoking the strength of the ancients, what normally would take twenty men could be done with two. She tried to keep it that way. They were happy to fight under her protection, and she was happy to stay far away from the ensuing death. She tried to tell herself it wasn't as if she'd killed them anyways.

At least this way it was over quickly.

}-{

Deuce shook. The adrenaline, fear, and ecstasy of having survived was coursing through her veins as she slowly lowered her flute from her lips. She was alone, the last one standing. The rest of Class Zero had been assigned to other sectors and Deuce had been thrown in with a unit scouring the city for lingering Militesi presence. Judging by the dead legionaries carelessly tossed about the battlefield, her companions had gotten cocky.

Cocky didn't amount to much in the face of Imperial magitek armor. The mechanized monstrosities tore through prey with sickening ease, particularly when operating in a pack. The legionaries probably hadn't had much chance from the start.

Not Deuce though, Deuce was a survivor. It took a while to get a good tone cluster going, but few things could stop Deuce once she'd gotten enough time to produce the first few hemorrhaging bursts. The magitek armor shells were still untouched on the outside, but the circuitry and, more importantly, the pilots hadn't seen the same kindness.

Looking up and down the street, anxious not to repeat the error of her late allies, Deuce brushed herself off and set about collecting knowing tags. Everyone in Rubrum had one, they were the sole means of identifying citizens post mortem. Intelligence would be wanting the tags to record the losses and send condolences where appropriate. It was a funny matter, telling people they'd lost someone they couldn't remember, but someone along the line had decided it was a courtesy towards the dead.

Of course, there was only room on the tag for family relations. Friends would have to wait till the next life to realize what they were missing.

When she was done, Deuce almost made to leave the scene when a thought struck her.

" _We see things tryin' to kill us so we kill 'em first. But... but even those things have memories somewhere, right?"_

Pausing mid stride, Deuce looked to the open cockpit of one of the downed magitek armors. Inside, a goggled face stared back, mouth parted in a macabre wincing grin, peeking out from a torn combat mask.

It was easier that they wore masks. Deuce hadn't really thought about it till now, but in a way it was an odd kindness to their opponents. Not having to know your target had a face made killing it much easier. Instead of thinking she was fighting humans, she could just tell herself they were strange creatures with clear, rubber frame eyes and olive green exo-skeletal skulls. They weren't someone else, they were just enemy soldiers. They didn't have knowing tags to collect either. Apparently, Milites didn't care for remembrance traditions.

 _Just soldiers._ Deuce tilted her head as a dark curiosity tugged at her subconscious. _I wonder..._

She took a tentative step forward, then another. She froze by the time her hands were on the firmly molded frame of the broken goggles. Somewhere inside, she knew this was forbidden. Nobody said anything about the taboos of unmasking the other side, but Deuce felt it in her gut. The deed was done, the pilot was dead, wasn't it best to just let it lie there and move on?

Gulping down a bracing breath, the youngest of Class Zero pushed past the warnings in her head and pulled back the material covering the upper half of the soldier's face, moving it to rest on his helmet.

Her breath caught.

Ice blue eyes, staring out from under snowy brows, were squinted in pain. The pupils had gone cloudy in death, but she could still recognize it was human. A strong, square chin. Perhaps he had been thought handsome back in his homeland. Little tufts of platinum blond hair framed the top of the face. Deuce wondered if the pilot had wanted a hair cut after the battle.

Deuce wondered if the pilot had wanted to go into battle at all.

Slowly, the young cadet replaced the goggles to where they had originally rested. The image of the pilot's face remained though. These memories had been built after the fact. With a sinking feeling, she realized they were hers to keep. She would remember him, and she would remember that she was the one who did this.

She would remember the secret behind the Militesi mask, that the monsters of the white tiger were also human.

Setting her lip, Deuce shook her head and allowed the fact to sink in, but not bring her down. This was just one more reason to end the war. This didn't change her resolve, it strengthened it. Some saw Deuce as fragile, as someone too naive for the truth. She didn't care. She would look the truth in the face and understand what it meant.

No one knew it, but Deuce, the flute girl, was perhaps the bravest soldier on the battlefield. Because behind that serene mask of quiet was not doubt, but conviction.

 **-}End [02]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _I think I like this one better. Deuce is sort of an underground favorite for me. She's much more difficult to use compared to the other characters, but she's far from useless in the right hands. Really, what it comes down to is persistence. Because I see Deuce as someone who doesn't back down, even if it hurts (which it often does), I really wanted to write her a piece that showed her in a valiant light._

 _Also, you'll notice some of the other members of Class Zero got some cameos this time around. Cater and Jack will get their own chapters further down the line, but for now I'm glad I got to use them as foils for Deuce._

 _Oh, and you'll notice Deuce might be in opposition to Mother's orders with the whole mask thing. That's why this is listed as an alternate cycle. Personally, I got really annoyed with how Class Zero got reduced to caricatures acting out Mother's will for the majority of the game, particularly when I really didn't care for Mother herself. Then again, I don't tend to care for most characters who pound-sign:HowDoIShirt?. Of course, it's more than that, but it was the first turn off. Ugh... okay, I'mma stop ranting now. Thanks for another read! See you next week?_

 _-CG_


	3. 03-At the End of the Day in Milites

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[03]At the End of the Day in Milites**

 _-[Trey, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 3: And then there will be Cake]_

If you were to ask anyone in the Dominion of Rubrum if they thought their cause was justified, they would look at you like you were mentally unstable and report you for treason. The Milites war effort was so barbaric, only a complete stranger to Orience or a filthy traitor could consider them just. They'd broken the Pax Codex by deploying L'Cie in battle, begun a genocidal campaign through both Rubrum and Lorica, and had initiated both crimes unprovoked. Militesi was almost synonymous for "demon" so far as the Dominion citizens were concerned.

Trey understood. He didn't sympathize, but he understood. He'd seen the bodies at Iscah, nearly an entire town massacred to make room for Militesi settlers. Most called it an outrage. Trey called it cause and effect. Unlike the fertile, temperate climate of Rubrum, Milites was a harsh land ever on the brink of famine. They didn't have the resources to keep prisoners, they barely had the resources to keep their army.

On the other hand, Rubrum was not unjustified to launch a counter attack. These lands belonged to the vermilion banner and Dominion citizens were at stake. Duty was on the line and the Council of Eight, Rubrum's governing body, was not about to simply salvage what they could and call it a day. No, they were going to fight back until not a single Militesi boot stood on Dominion soil. This was war, and whatever price it took to set Rubrum free again, they were willing to pay it.

The cause and effect for Trey getting involved in the matter was a little less emotionally stirring. For him, it was simply a matter of what Mother wished of Class Zero. Technically speaking, his allegiance wasn't to Rubrum, it was to Mother. If Mother had told him they were moving to the Berith Desert and leaving all this madness behind, Trey would have nodded and said goodbye to Akademia without a second thought. This wasn't their home; every member of Class Zero was painfully aware of this. But if Mother wanted them to defend the Dominion and its people, they would. Simple as that, she said conquer and they annihilated.

However, Trey was smart enough to try and seek out a correlation between the two. He didn't mind combat, but it bothered him whenever he felt he wasn't getting the full picture. As far as he understood, Mother wanted to save the Dominion. Trey took that to mean once they'd expelled the Empire back into its own frozen corner of Orience, the war would be over. He was satisfied with that. In his own personal notes, he circled the day they were planning the last offensive on Dominion soil. After that, things would be quiet again and they could continue with their studies.

}-{

"You really believe that?"

Something told Trey that Ace's frown wasn't induced by the muggy fog rolling down south from the Jubanla mountains.

Trey kept moving at a steady rate and smiled assuredly back. "Of course. Our goal is to liberate the Dominion. If we give a show of force, systematically proving our military superiority and governing objectives, then the Militesi will have no logical conclusion but to abandon their efforts."

"You think they're running on _logic_?"

The two boys turned to regard the scoffing third member of their party. Sice, the least socially minded member of Class Zero, squinted incredulously at Trey with the eye that wasn't covered by her sweeping silver bangs. "Hate to break it to you, but those propaganda clips they broadcast don't really have the whole 'rational discussion' vibe, Trey. As far as I can tell, those idiots run off of whatever their high-and-mighty leader tells them and a whole lot of snow cones."

Ace gave Sice a look even more skeptical than the one Trey had gotten. "Snow cones?"

The platinum haired scythe bearer shrugged. "They've gotta eat something. What can _you_ think of that they have year round? Pine needles?"

"Behemoth steak," Trey corrected, waving his hand as if to clear the air of his classmate's ignorance. "I hear it's quite popular in the southern districts. Seasoned with the hearty spices grown in Lorica, which is now under Imperial control, you'll note. The Militesi diet promotes muscle growth and a moderate-to-high fat concentration to stave off the annually frigid conditions. Other delicacies include—"

"Great, you can stop now," Sice interrupted irreverently. "Yeesh. You know what a joke is, Trey?"

"Of course, it's a humorous construction usually expressed through—"

"Seriously, stop." Her perpetual glare went a shade deeper. "I read the stupid encyclopedia back when we were ten, alright? It was a rhetorical—"

" _Quiet!_ " Ace gave them both a stern look, interrupting the formulation of an intellectual come back far too advanced to be appreciated. "Keep it down, alright? This _is_ still occupied territory."

"...Fine." With a disgruntled huff, Sice relented.

Trey surmised that neither of them were satisfied. They would have to pursue this discussion after the mission.

}-{

Not much later, Class Zero got sent into the heart of the beast. The moment had come, there was a chance to send Militesi operations grinding to a halt by gutting out the thrust of their offensive: the Magitek Armor factory in Ingram. Trey saw that as conducive to their goal. Shutting down the technological war machines was tantamount to spitting on the White Tiger flag; if Rubrum got away with it, the Militesi might get the picture and give up. Within an hour of the infiltration, a cease fire was called for.

Unfortunately, it wasn't actually the efforts of Class Zero that caused the sudden seeking of truce.

No, the Concordians of the east had finally poked their heads further than North Togoreth and decided that things might eventually become too much for Rubrum, their natural buffer against the Milites Empire. Queen Andoria, reigning monarch of the seclusive east, said it was the will of the Crystal, but Trey had his doubts. Impartiality didn't seem to be an inherent trait of the Great Crystals. After all, the Militesi White Tiger Crystal had blessed its people with the technological prowess to conquer most of Rubrum, hadn't it? They were wild cards, at best; Their will was a cause whose effect wasn't necessarily pleasant for the rest of Orience.

Still, it bought peace where Class Zero had presumably failed.

...For a few hours.

}-{

One week and a harrowing escape later, Trey found himself in the Ready Room nursing a cup of mandragoran tearoot. It was a bitter beverage, fit for his sober mood as he reassessed the state of affairs. Milites hadn't given up after the loss of their foremost factory and key prototypes. Trey should have expected that. Stark lands caused stark people, after all.

Perhaps taking down their leader then, Marshall Cid Aulstyne. As the leading proponent of the current Crystal War, it made sense to paint the man as a target.

The only problem there was getting to the dictator. Aulstyne had a nasty habit of staying out of reach, and when he did appear in public, it was usually to give some rousing speech about the nobility of the Militesi cause. Eliminating him on such an occasion would mean facing a crowd of zealots more fearsome than a colossus brigade.

Explaining all of this to Cinque was more for Trey to get it out of his system than to actually make a strategy plan. Cinque didn't have a mind for critical matters, but she interrupted him less than most of his classmates.

"I dunno, Trey-Trey," The wide eyed girl hummed in what most would think was a mockingly sing-song tone. Trey chalked it up to fascination with inflection. "If the Milt's still have a base, I think they'll keep coming."

"Precisely," Trey graciously overlooked the fact that that had been his point all along. "Aulstyne is the Militesi anchor, keeping the war effort grounded. But it isn't just him, it's the ideal he represents. If we kill Aulstyne, will his efforts be forgotten with him? Or have the people internalized his thoughts so much that it wouldn't make a difference?"

"No, I mean we smash the whole thing," Cinque replied in an ironically light tone. "Deucey's been talking about how the Milt's are just normal people from normal towns. Well, in that case, you can't make soldiers if you don't have normal people, right? So I say we just swoop in and make everyone stay home! That way it doesn't matter what Mr. big bad dictator says."

"An occupation effort?" Trey frowned, but thoughtfully mulled the idea over none-the-less. "What makes us different from the Militesi in that case?"

"Easy!" Cinque beamed, practically clapping her hands at the apparent obviousness of it all. "We're us! We're the good guys, Trey! If we go in and start callin' the shots, everything'll go just peachy!"

"You really believe that?"

"I'd bet a buttercream cake on it!" Cinque affirmed, crossing her heart. She seemed fond of childish gestures like that. Trey wondered if she would ever outgrow them. "Not one from Rokol, of course, but one of those ones they actually bake in Milites. You ever thought about what those taste like, Trey-Trey?"

Trey pursed his lips and nodded. Cause: occupation of territories. Effect: submission and peace. Grab hold of the hostile factions and then there would be cake. Trey could only imagine the look a Militesi baker would give them when their first order to the newly subjugated people was to make a local delicacy.

Frankly, it hadn't worked out so well when the Militesi had tried the same tactics in Rubrum.

Still, maybe there was a difference. Maybe if they took these lands in the name of peace, or if they made life in Milites better because of the invasion. If they just brought an end to the whole cursed war then maybe people would stop fighting and things would go back to normal.

For a rare moment in Dominion history, Trey of Class Zero tried to ignore the facts and believe the irrational.

}-{

Marching into Milites and setting up camp on the capital's door step brought a lot of mixed feelings with it. They'd come this far and still the Imperial guard in Ingram refused to back down. Trey had personally participated in most of the campaigns leading up to this point. The locals' reaction to the efforts were less than thrilling. Marching into the cold, metal labyrinths most Militesi called home felt hollow in more ways than one. The cause and effect was working, Dominion control of the territory had brought a halt to most settlements contributing to the war. Now they were filled with civilians and occupying armies depending on ragged supply lines to barely scrounge through the winter. There was peace in most of Milites, but it was a cold, cloying thing that made the Dominion realize why the people had preferred the fires of war. War brought death, but it also brought change.

Still, Cinque somehow found a baker in Azurr who was willing to fulfill her vision for the occasion. She probably paid a fortune for the pastry, but she got what she wanted. When it was ready, she hunted Trey down on top of one of the cities skyscrapers and insisted he take a piece before it cooled. Together, the two Agito Cadets shared the blood-bought confection and looked north towards the last hold out of their enemies. Trey had no further formulations. The cause was already in motion, whatever effects followed couldn't be cut off now.

"...Y'know," after five minutes or so, Cinque mercifully broke the silence, "I thought I'd be happier."

Trey sighed. He'd stopped halfway through his piece of the dessert; it was probably frozen to the plate by now. "Indeed, Note quite what we were expecting."

"I mean... I thought they'd make it better here," the girl continued, lifting up her piece and examining it with a side-to-side head tilt. "It's still not as sweet as it should be."

Trey tried to ignore his classmate's inferred indifference to the war effort.

Still, she went on. "Maybe I was thinkin' the grass was greener on the other side, huh?"

"...They don't have grass here, Cinque."

"Oh!" A hand went flying to her mouth as shock spread over her face; as if this were the first time she'd realized the general lack of flora in the frozen wastes. "Well, maybe that's it then! Maybe we need to heat this place up and things will get better!"

"They attempted that," Trey noted grimly. Yes, they'd tried to push to better things. It had been a good cause. So why were the effects so wrong? "I don't think it succeeded quite the way they'd hoped."

"Well... maybe I'll have 'em make another cake once the war's over for good."

Trey paused. Would peace work? Could Milites and Rubrum ever truly live as allies? Or was this just a sad, broken corner of the world where even the best intentions turned cold by the time they turned to action?

"...We'll see."

At the end of the day in Milites, the ingredients were still the same. Still, even though it went against all logic, Trey again buried his thoughts and hoped the cake would someday not be a lie.

 **-}End[03]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _Aaaand we're back to being sloppy. Sorry people, I had a deadline and way too many Portal jokes running off with all my seriousness. I have trouble writing analytics like Trey, so this probably verged more on the edge of crack than actually thoughtful. He's not conviction driven like Deuce. In fact, I think he might be the start of the whole robotic-mother-fan-club on an initial glance (seriously, their zealotry kind of hurt their development as characters), but he has just enough pomp to make him stand apart._

 _This may be the last one shot I can get out on time for a while, as I head into a toxic minefield known as too-many-classes-with-assignments-due. Wish me luck! And may we meet again on the far side. In the meantime, why not check out the rest of the Twelve Shots of Summer? Head over to our C2 and I'm sure you'll find a piece to your liking or join the fun over at our forum._

 _...Or just keep reading this. You could do that too._

 _Until then,_

 _-CG_


	4. 04-Compassion

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[04]Compassion**

 _-[Cater, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 4: Valiant]_

Heroes were a funny subject in Orience. They didn't get to leave much of an impression when it came to a legacy, and last minute heroics were never rewarded with recognition. Not everybody articulated it, but deep down, everyone knew. The only heroes they really knew about where the L'Cie, people who had traded their humanity for power; thralls of the Crystals.

L'Cie didn't die.

Of course, if they did, then nobody remembered it, but most cases recorded a different ending for those chosen by the Crystal. Instead of the usual drifting out of living memory, L'Cie were privileged with crystal stasis. Even as they lost the heart to care about anyone around them, they were given the consolation that nobody would forget their sacrifice.

The only other option for honorable mention was doing something big enough to get noticed by the written records before everybody forgot you existed.

Needless to say, this wasn't conducive to a culture that revered heroes. Individuals would make their own attachments, regardless, but clinically speaking it was an irksome task to try to track down and record anyone who might end up having an impact on the world. History was full of events reconstructed according to living reasoning and names found on knowing tags. Whatever was left for the living to find, there was always the lingering feeling that something else was being left out, that someone who could have been important was being forgotten.

Cater didn't think it was sad. Nobody did. Nobody in their right mind, anyway. What was the point of heroes if all you ever did was mourn over them? Cater had seen people lose it over family members they'd forgotten, only reminded by knowing tags. Few things put her in a bad mood faster.

 _Don't you crybabies get it? They're not coming back. They might as well not have existed_.

Cater wasn't afraid to say it. Cater didn't care what they thought. Even if they hated her with all their hearts, she wouldn't remember them when they were gone. That was the advantage of the Crystal induced memory blocking; It didn't matter who tried to make you bleed, all wounds were forgiven with time, so long as you were the last one standing. And for all intents and purposes, Class Zero would indeed remain the last ones to leave the battlefield alive.

And yet, there was something eerie about meeting someone and knowing that one of you would eventually forget the other. Cater pushed the thought down whenever it tried to come up. It didn't help her, and it certainly didn't help whoever she would be forgetting. The only ones she really cared about were the ones with knowing tags connected to her, and that was more concern for professional performance than personal well being. If an agent connected to Class Zero died on her watch, it would reflect poorly on Mother. Thus, Cater was generally more attentive to troop assignments than she was to individual names. Whoever the numbers where, the point was that they didn't make her look bad once they were gone.

}-{

"Hey, can I talk to you for a sec?"

Cater kept up her clipped trot until the same voice cleared its throat and she realized it was following her. She didn't even try to stop the curt scowl and emphatic eyebrow pop as she gave her unwanted companion, a gangly, strawberry-blonde, a passing glance. "Make it quick," she sighed, unholstering her magicite pistol so she could prime it before she got to the arena. "I got stuff to do."

 _You know, just preparing to save the Dominion. No big._

"H-Hey! We're gonna be working together on the next operation!" The other girl sounded offended. Cater wondered if it would be worth it to look at her face and try to siphon amusement for the ridiculousness of it. "Don't you think we should get to know each other a little?"

"Just you?" Cater gave the girl, one of the teal-scarfed Class Twelfth cadets, an incredulous look. Class Twelfth was a band of free-spirited ne'er-do-wells and similar chumps. That was all fine and dandy, but Class Zero generally didn't have the time to protect dead weight. Every member could handle themselves in a pinch, having a support unit would just make it one big escort mission.

Maybe the girl hadn't meant it that way. It was all the buzz around Akademia that the next two operations would be involving just about everyone the Dominion could manage; but Cater had the feeling this girl meant a direct connection to Class Zero rather than a general participation.

She also had the feeling this had happened before.

It wasn't the first time Cater had gotten deja-vu. In fact, she'd been getting a pretty bad case of it from just about everything recently. It was like walking back to the classroom after you thought you checked something. Whether or not it had really happened before didn't matter, just that you felt you knew the ending before you got there; like knowing where a well aimed bullet would land before it hit its mark.

Mother had said it was fine though, so Cater refused to let it bother her.

Still, it hung at the edge of her mind as she calmly cleaned her pistol's barrel and patiently waited for the other girl to stop giving a flustered defense of Class Twelfth. Trey said that deja-vu happened when the brain tried to subconsciously recognize things based on the past. Or... something like that. Cater didn't usually have the time to sit through the scholarly archer's lectures. What was familiar? Had she known someone from Class Twelfth before? Or was it more because of the marching orders?

Eventually, Cater gave it up, reminding herself that Mother had said to let it go and moving on to the arena with the Class Twelfth girl still following.

She practiced saving her unwanted charge from simulated soldiers for the rest of the day.

}-{

"Who's that?"

Deuce's query hit Cater like a bullet she should have seen coming. She looked over her shoulder, already knowing who the quiet brunette was referring to, and let out an exasperated sigh when she confirmed the Class Twelfth cadet from a few days back was following them. The girl took on a subdued hunch at Cater's response, but kept on stalking.

"Don't ask," Cater muttered to her classmate. "I think it's the bigwig's little way of saying we need a handicap on the battlefield."

Deuce, ever the open book, jerked back slightly and blinked in surprise. "She's assigned with us?"

"Well... not inducted, like Crybaby and Coughs-a-Lot," the ginger haired gun mage explained, listing the two other non-original additions to Class Zero the administration had seen fit to shoehorn into their ranks. "But we might be working with her unit," _Or her specifically,_ "so she's been crashing my training sessions."

"Class Twelfth... they're Blue Mages, right?"

"Blue mages?" Cater made a face. "What? Like they're eternally depressed over their awful report cards? Hell, I would be too if I had their track record."

"No, like, well... there used to be some sort of classification for mages back when Akademia first started. Queen explained it to me. Blue Mages learned by watching others. They learned how to do things no one else could figure out, but they also have trouble with normal methods. They're kinda... Different."

"Different, huh..." the gun mage snorted and threw another disdainful glance over her shoulder. "Can't argue with that one, Deuce." It explained why the girl still approached her. Most people in Akademia still used ten-foot poles around Class Zero, especially after the whole Ingram incident thing. "Still... I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop here. Are we getting sent on a suicide mission with the Twelves? I mean, I know they're trying to get rid of us, but do they really need to be that obvious about it?"

The next few days, Cater felt as if she were missing her shadow.

}-{

When the final marching orders were finally issued, Cater found herself moving out with the ground units. The airships were all headed east towards the Concordian front and Cater had the bad luck of getting sent to hold the line at Meroe. In fact, most of Class Zero was flying to the eastern skies, only Cater, Nine, and Jack were selected for the ground campaign.

It was a long walk from Akademia to Meroe.

They moved with the legionaries to conserve supplies and minimize energy spent on skirmishes. The monsters of the land were still in as bad a mood as anyone given the state of things, but they gave a wide berth to smaller creatures that moved in big enough packs. Reluctantly, Cater conceded that plodding alongside the Dominion war wagons was better than dealing with Wild Tauricorns.

Unfortunately, that also meant she had to bear with the company of the other classes getting sent to the front; most of them taking advantage of the prime opportunity to whine about the doom and gloom waiting around the corner. Jack tried to fight the sentiments with his typically sunny personality and a round of bad jokes. Cater studiously tuned both out and occupied herself counting feathers on the Chocobo ahead of her.

She almost didn't notice when her "friend" returned.

"Not now, Nine," she said off-hand to the approaching footsteps. "I'm busy."

The high voice that answered definitely wasn't Nine's. "Are you always busy?"

Cater frowned and looked behind her. Someone vaguely familiar with a teal-scarf was awkwardly ambling in her footsteps. The ginger haired gun mage tilted her head. "And you are?"

"I... Um... I'm with your support unit," the stranger said stiltedly. The way the girl didn't meet Cater's subsequent measuring look didn't do much to reinforce the claim. Rallying to a determined pout, the teal-scarfed cadet did a salute with the wrong hand and looked forward, but not at Cater. "Viventa Elysium, at your service!"

"My _what_?" Cater gave the girl a pointed look. Of all the times it could choose to strike, Cater's deja-vu chose then to hit her with a waterfall of its nagging sensation. "You're telling me they sent a Twelfth to—?"

"I-I volunteered!" Viventa asserted, sounding somewhere between desperate to explain herself and hurt at what Cater was about to insinuate. "I... I wanted to reach my potential. We're not that great with textbooks in Class Twelfth, but I thought if I could get a look at a real pro..."

"You mean like those knuckle heads in Class Second?" Cater resumed her march full force and tried to keep her place in the ranks. "Or were you hoping for someone not so likely get themselves killed? 'Cause y'know the Consortium has it out for us in Class Zero, right?"

"I know that!" Viventa brushed back her hair, an unruly strawberry mess, and pressed on after Cater with long, determined strides. "But I... I won't be able to learn from you if you're dead! I've got to get in the experience while you're here! Who knows when Orience will see another hero like—"

"Whoa there!" Cater tried very hard not to stumble as Viventa confirmed all preconceptions the Twelfths didn't think things through. "First: Maybe you didn't notice, but Class Zero got the boot from the whole 'hero' gig when everybody decided to blame us for what happened in Ingram. You want heroes? You can shake hands with a L'Cie when we get to Meroe.

"Second: Why the hell would you choose me? I don't do lessons, kid."

"I don't need lessons!" Viventa countered. "I'm a Twelfth. All I need is someone to look up to!"

Cater felt her stomach turning from the sickly sweet idealism of it all.

"Look, Twelfth... it's like this," Cater sighed, shaking her head. In hindsight, maybe talking to Nine wouldn't have been so bad. "We're heading for a meat grinder. They're counting on us to break a deadlock, so I need to be ready for anything, alright? I don't got time for babysitting."

"No, I totally get it!" The strawberry haired Twelfth nodded enthusiastically. _Where'd her shrinking violet side go?_ "That's why I need to learn from you! You're not afraid to do anything! That's what Class Zero means to me. But you especially! You're not afraid to stand out, or speak your mind, or go in where everyone else is dying... I-I've read your reports! You've got one of the best records in the Dominion, did you know that?"

Cater forced her eyes ahead and tried to tell herself the perspiration was just the march in the sun getting to her. She did know she was one of the best in the Dominion. What she didn't know was that someone else had been watching.

"Listen..." Viventa went on, but her voice had lost some of its ravingly fanatic edge. "I know us Twelfths don't really have the best reputation, but part of that is that we need a good teacher. We're only as great as what we let in. I... I want to be like you, Cater. I don't want to be afraid of anything. I want to be a hero."

"...Huh," Cater forced a shrug and kept walking. It was a good speech, especially for a Twelfth, but words didn't mean much in the real world. On the surface, Cater almost felt like just giving it up and taking the girl along. On the inside, her gut told her the words would be gone soon anyway. Viventa was wrong. Cater was afraid of something.

Cater was afraid of losing.

}-{

Jack gave a low whistle as they approached the battle lines. A greyish-white sea of Imperial Magitek Armors was rippling its way out of the Militesi gates. "Well, the odds aren't lookin' so good on this one," the boy noted, some of his usual good humor flickering cold for a moment before a smile spread again. "You ready to set a new record, Cate?"

"You serious?" She gave her classmate a tight grin. "I've only got you and Nine to compete with, right? Try not to slow me down out there too much, alright?"

"Hey! I ain't slow, yo!" Nine, a scar faced delinquent who towered over Cater at six-foot-one, pounded his chest with his fist. "two thousand gil says I show both a' you up."

"Heeeey now," Jack held up his hands defensively. "You know what the class president said about gambling, right? No gil, just skill. Besides, we're not just tearing into the Milt's this time. We've got to keep the front lines long enough for the rear unit to complete the summoning."

Cater felt a dry joke about escort missions die in her throat.

}-{

Bullets punched through the muggy fog permeating the coastal battlegrounds. A heat storm was headed in against the icy gates of Milites, almost as an ironic omen as the Dominion line wilted and tore under the Militesi assault.

Cater stood at the front, continuously firing into the mist as Imperial silhouettes emerged only to stumble and go still. Somehow, she'd gotten sidetracked into defending an isolated cadet unit. She could hear Nine and Jack a ways off. She didn't have to worry about them, they could handle an army or two if it came down to it.

So why was she fighting for this cadet unit? Intel said they were a detachment from Class Eleventh that lost their way. Class Eleventh. _Professors_. The least likely unit to do any good on the front lines right next to Class Twelfth.

And yet, Cater was fighting for them. Cursing herself half the way there, but fighting for them none-the-less. Something inside her said it was what she was supposed to do.

It wasn't until Jack told her over the COMM to cut the heroics that she realized the word she was looking for.

She still didn't know why she was thinking of it, but she did pull back.

}-{

The second battle of Meroe, or the Battle at Big Bridge as it later became known, ended on a melancholy note. The Militesi invasion force was completely wiped out, but the Dominion still sustained substantial losses. Withdrawing to lick their wounds, the remaining forces retreated back to brood at their respective capitals and count their losses.

Cater came out with a marginally notable performance evaluation marred by what was recorded as a judgment error.

A few days after the battle's end, Cater was called out of class to the Class Eighth intelligence sector on pretenses of debriefing.

"I already gave my report to Class Ninth," she told the orderly who had been sent to retrieve her. "If you wanna know what happened, you can talk to them."

"Well... it's not quite like that, actually," the orderly, a short, freckled munchkin, played with his crimson shorts and looked away. "It's more like... inheritance."

"Inheritance?" Cater raised an eyebrow. "Forget it. Nobody owes me anything."

"H-hey!" the orderly grabbed at her sleeve.

She raised the back of her hand and gave him a pointed look.

"It's... it was in her journal. The last page said it belonged to you."

Again, Cater had the feeling of the bullet she should have seen coming.

By the time they made it to the Class Eighth classroom, Cater felt like her inner ear was checking out for the day. Her head was reeling and she couldn't tell why. She was tempted to just tell the orderly "forget it" and turn around, but something kept her mouth shut and her footsteps forward.

It was agony.

A yellow-scarfed Class Eighth member handed her a simple leather bound collection of pages and a knowing tag. Cater frowned at the tag, noting with annoyance that nowhere did it list her as the recipient in case of death, but grudgingly accepted the items.

}-{

Most of the time, Cater's deja-vu came and went. There were prolonged periods, but usually nothing longer than a day.

The feeling hung over her like a death sentence now.

The book was a journal. Cater found her own name a few times, but it was usually in relation to the rest of Class Zero. Actually, the former owner seemed to have a crush on Jack. Cater idly wondered if a confession had ever taken place.

As she got further in, Cater found more entries with her name. It was almost embarrassing, considering the owner had the undistinguished honor of hitting rock bottom in Class Twelfth. Sometimes, Cater felt like just putting the Journal down and forgetting about it, but something about it kept drawing her back. The owner kept talking about courage. Courage to talk, courage to take tests she knew she would flunk, courage to stand up and volunteer for an assignment instead of just waiting.

Courage to care.

At first, Cater thought it was kind of ridiculous. She'd actually given the journal a derisive snort when the owner put those words down the first time. Soon, she thought it more than ridiculous. It was suicidal. It was investing in things that would inevitably be lost. It was getting ready to lose.

Cater couldn't take it. She didn't like to look death in the eye and think she would lose. She didn't like to think in that situation in general. As far as she was concerned, her gut had gotten her this far. She needed to care more about winning than she did about why she wanted to win. Her heart burned to become the best already. Wasn't that enough?

Still, the deja-vu seemed to lessen after she read it. Apparently there wasn't any getting off this train until it reached the end of the tracks. With grim determination, Cater pressed on.

}-{

It was the middle of the night when she finished. The last entries were leading up to the Battle at Big Bridge. It was weird to see entries about meeting herself. The owner had an eye for quality at least, they were well acquainted with Cater's previously unblemished record.

At the edge of her consciousness, she knew the end was coming for the girl who passed her thoughts to Cater. She wasn't really sure what she would find there, but she was half expecting to read the details of the death.

The owner didn't know what she was getting into. Or at least, it seemed that way. She was apprehensive about the looming conflict, but not enough to quit while she was alive. She'd never been in a sortie that size. She'd tried to convince Cater to bring her along though. Apparently that hadn't worked. Cater grudgingly crossed out the possibility that this girl had caused the smudge on her record.

The last part was written before the battle.

 _Gun-Mage Cate,_ it began. Cater rolled her eyes in an attempt to maintain her distance. _I've decided that if I want to be a hero like you, I have do more than dream. I have to think. I can't care if I don't think. I was really sad that I couldn't train with you, but I think I understand. You've got an important job to do. If I tried to learn from you, I'd probably get in your way. I still hope I'll get to learn from you sometime, but it looks like training's over. I wish I'd tried sooner. Cate, I know everyone else says I'm a coward, but I never really admitted it. So... there. I said it. I don't know if I could've been a hero, but whatever I can give this time, I hope it helps you. You really helped me think about being more than a coward. If I make it through this, I'm going to ask you to teach me again. I know you're tired of it, but I've got to do this. I want to be a hero like you, and I've got to do more than dream to do that._

 _You'll probably never read this though. Haha. I'm looking at the back of your head right now, actually. You don't know it, but you were a good friend. In your own way, I think you did teach me. Thanks Cate. See you out there, I'll try to be back to write again._

 _-Tem. XVII, 842 RG._

Cater closed the book. She didn't feel deja vu any more. There were tears in her eyes, but she promised herself it would pass. She would forget. She wouldn't have to care.

It was then that she realized there was a performance slip folded in with following blank page.

Viventa Elysium, Class Twelfth. Killed in Action retrieving a derelict squad from Class Eleventh, Tem. XVII, 842 RG.

Cater held up the slip and felt her lips twist into a grimace. _Idiot_. _Why didn't you leave it for someone else? Why didn't you just live?_

 _Why were you watching me?_

But Cater already knew the answer to these questions. It burned to think about it, but she couldn't stop herself now. She couldn't stand ignoring it like a coward anymore.

}-{

The next morning, Cater opened the book one last time and touched the opposite blank page with a trembling pen.

 _You didn't have anything left to learn_.

With that, the ginger haired gun mage once again closed the journal of Viventa Elysium, but this time knowing she wouldn't forget what it said.

And hoping that it stayed that way.

 **-}End[04]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _You know what? I think I'm slipping into psychological angst in response to schoolwork induced mako poisoning. I say right now: I am already sorry if I did my job right and you cried or something*. On the other hand, I guess it shows some degree of skill to be able to write this much under pressure. Just one more week and I can coast till the fall semester._

 _Also, I apologize if Cater sort of seemed like a little snot for most of this. I actually really like playing as Cater. She's very agile and adaptable, making it so you almost never have to commit to a set stance for long and are usually guaranteed to get out of harm's way by the time it gets to you. I guess I twisted that into a personality that fears attachment somehow. I must be an awful person. I need to stop Joshuelmeyering this and write a happy ending here or there._

 _...Or something._

 _Anyway, thanks for reading another week. Sorry if this one hurt. Go and read some of the fluff infesting the Type-0 section of Fan Fiction dot net and try to feel better. Oh, and check out the other Twelve Shots of Summer. Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you're gonna be finding much comfort there this week, but you can always give it a shot, right?_

 _Till next time,_

 _-CG_

 _*I also apologize if I did my job wrong and wasted your time. Is there any winning?_


	5. 05-Detached

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[05]Detached**

 _-[Cinque-Kazusa, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 5: Star Gazer]_

When Kurasame Susuya died, a number of things happened out of the ordinary. The late commander was identified by personal witness, his knowing tag was retrieved by unauthorized sources, his weapon was scavenged from the battlefield and sold on the black market, and the class that had served under his leadership, Class Zero, attended his gravesite in an attempt at remembrance.

The first of these things was made possible by a trick of fate. Kazusa Futahito, a former Class Eleventh cadet, had been friends with the late commander back in the day and kept photographs around his lab. Apparently, Dr. Futahito saw it coming; he'd left himself a few reminders here and there to start investigating when he forgot who was in the picture. A quick visit to the morgue confirmed both the fate of the man in the portrait and the identity of a certain tagless commander. That was when the trick of fate decided to spring into a full blown moment of destiny; For while many claimed they would not forget in life, few would ever think they could recover their memories after they lost them.

In the wake of the Commander's death, Kazusa Futahito vowed to do just that.

}-{

After that day, Kazusa accelerated his research. In a way, this had been a long time coming. He'd already been delving into the secrets of the human body before, but now he adamantly strove towards his ultimate goal: unlocking memories left behind in the flesh. Even when the crystal blotted out the memories, the body remembered. Eyes had seen, ears had heard, and fingers had touched. The memories stored there weren't gone, only locked away behind whatever constituted the power of the Crystal.

The task then, simply put, was simply to circumvent the influence of the crystal and reconnect the alienated memories.

Finding test subjects was a thorny matter. First, because Kazusa could only be sure of a few people who had much of a connection to Commander Susuya; and second, because Kazusa's methods of experimentation tended to drive away prime subjects. Class Zero had yielded many fascinating results, but only one of them kept coming back for subsequent sessions. Apparently being drugged in a secret laboratory was something of a turn off. Kazusa couldn't understand it. As far as drugging-in-a-secret-lair-type scientists went, he was about as decent as they came. Maybe he would have to start offering lollipops for a session well done...

At any rate, he did have three test subjects to work with. The first was himself, but he could only record so much under the influence of anesthetics. The second was a classmate he and the Commander had shared. She was an instructor now, but she was currently unassigned and subsequently spent most afternoons hanging around the grand terrace. Unfortunately, persuading her to take the time to come and go under for an hour or two took a lot of energy, and Kazusa wasn't overly fond of sunlight. The third subject was a girl with gingery-brown hair from Class Zero. Kazusa hadn't checked her for a knowing tag, but he was pretty sure she had a name of some sort. Most of the time he was so eager to get the testing started that asking names and such didn't occur to him.

What mattered was that she kept coming back.

}-{

"Heeey! Mr. Kazuchi~!"

Without looking up, Kazusa sprayed some of his latest sleep gas compound in the speaker's direction and flipped through his research log until he found the edge of the current records. Giving a satisfied grin, he smoothed the pages and set about moving the girl to the test subject bed.

...Come to think of it, perhaps it was a smart idea to gas the subject _after_ they had positioned themselves on the bed while conscious. The girl wasn't particularly heavy set, but Kazusa wasn't exactly a Lorican under his lab coat. Making a note of the observation, the Dominion scientist gave his biceps a quick stretch and began another round of probing his perennial subject's memories.

}-{

"While Concordia is the current ruling nation of the East, it was not always that way."

The image of Commander Susuya tilted to an odd angle. _He looks kinda funny with that mask on..._

"Besides Trey and Queen, who can tell me the name of the original kingdom of the dragon crystal?"

 _It's like he doesn't have a mouth. ...Like-Like a Moglin!_ As if responding to the internal commentary, Commander Susuya's icy blue gaze squinted and his nose seemed to grow a little. Was that... Fur?

The Commander began to pace as he sprouted a comically shrunken pair of purple wings and rounded ears popped up out of his gently mussed azure-grey hair. Right when the situation didn't seem capable of bending reality any further, the former Ice Reaper paused and looked right at the viewer. "Aren't I cute, kupo?" He intoned in his cold, smooth voice.

What in the name of the Suzaku...

Then, almost as suddenly as the transformation had occurred, Moogle-Kurasame reverted into Normal-Kurasame and the girl's memory fizzled out.

}-{

A frown flickered across Kazusa's lips, but quickly resolved into an impassive sigh. He'd been through many sessions like this. That was the problem with this girl, she wasn't particularly attentive and her memories seemed to rely heavily on events that hadn't actually happened. Her head was up in the clouds and Kazusa didn't know what to do to make it come down so he could get useful memories out of it. Perhaps including stimulus of the class room setting was a bad idea... the subject had the most time to daydream when she wasn't engaged. Adjusting the session's stimuli, Kazusa again sat down at his monitor and hoped the girl had some undiluted memories associated with the battlefield.

This was going to be a long process...

}-{

Kazusa was surprised to learn the girl's weapon of choice was a mace. She wasn't so frail as to seem unworthy of combat in general, granted, but she did totter around like a drunken Cactuar as she swung the weapon in lumbering arcs. Perhaps she'd bitten off more than she could chew when selecting a weapon.

The Commander's voice, barely identifiable in the background, took a sharp turn.

" _Cinque._ "

The memory spun around and did that tilt the girl seemed fond of whenever she was addressing something she didn't understand all the way.

That tilt happened a lot.

"That was good."

The memory squinted in joy. _Yay! He said it was good!_

"Now tell me exactly what you did wrong."

 _He said it was good! Hah! Wait till Trey-Trey hears_ that _one! He's gonna be so jealous!_

"Cinque!"

"...Huh?"

"Pay attention."

Again, the tilt.

Kazusa wrote what he could about the Commander's professional disciplinary methodology and began a separate report to analyze the subject's personal quirks.

}-{

 _You know... Mr. Kurasam-sam actually seems kinda sad sometimes_.

Kazusa straightened in his chair as the thoughts drifted by and pulled him out of his mechanical note taking . The memory had changed to one of the liberation mission the class had participated in. Commander Susuya, quite to the contrary of his student's claim, was in the middle of eviscerating a magitek armor suit. He deftly finished the maneuver in two broad strokes and landed with a flourish. A smile tugged at Kazusa's lips. The scene felt familiar.

 _Like... he's always there for us. I know he always acts grumpy, and he doesn't always give the best grades, but he's not just a robot under that mask, right?_

Kurasame's eyes flashed red as his head swiveled to address the viewer.

"Cinque."

"Gah! Y-yes, Robo-same?"

"Focus on the mission."

Fascinating. No lengthy rebuke, no threats of additional paperwork when they got back to Akademia... Of course, Kurasame's eyes probably hadn't flashed like that, but Kazusa was content with just making headway. Little by little, he was uncovering who his friend had been.

}-{

The next day was kind of a drag. A thunderstorm had rolled in from across the bay and Akademia's maintenance teams had shut down the power to avoid unintentional surges into the peristylium. Unfortunately, that also meant Kazusa's lab (and the rest of Akademia) would have to manage without electricity until the storm gave up the ghost. In the meantime, Kazusa was left to mutter to himself by candle light and analyze data for possible patterns. They had an airship monitored weather watch, for pity's sake! Couldn't they at least give him some warning about these kinds of—?

His hands brushed over a notice lying on his desk that hadn't been there a week ago and a sheepish pause seeped in as he read the contents. Oh... apparently they had.

Still, didn't they realize what they were impeding? It was down right unprofessional to halt his secret operations like this. Kazusa resolved to write a stiff reproach for those windbags in the Consortium once he got through with his analysis. If he was lucky, he could get that Class Zero girl to deliver it for him. Regrettably, his previous observation habits had earned him a restraining order from the Chancellor.

Kazusa would've done it again given the chance.

Behind him, the door to his lab clicked and whispered as it swung away.

"Mr. Kazuchi~! I'm back for that... huh?"

Kazusa blinked and looked at his watch. Was it that late already? Not that it mattered today.

"Mmm?" He faced her with detached interest. "Sorry, no experiments today. Power's down."

"Huh?" the girl gave him that head tilt he was used to watching through her eyes. "I thought your nighty-night spray didn't need power."

"Well _that_ doesn't," Kazusa admitted, adjusting his glasses and regarding the test bed with melancholy. "But I can't do any further experiments without proper equipment. Why would I put you to sleep if I can't do my experiments?"

"Your what?"

"My experiments; what you've been coming for. We've been unraveling the secrets of the human psyche and boldly striving against the seal of the Crystal," Kazusa explained. Some long buried part of him almost talked him out of the explanation, but it had been so long since anybody asked that Dr. Futahito could hardly help himself. "You and me, we're going to remember someday."

"Remember?" the girl giggled. Not quite the response Kazusa was hoping for, but hardly surprising. "I don't know what you're talking about, Mr. Kazuchi. I've been coming here 'cause if I sleep in the garden I'll get caught. Plus, I get to skip science homework if I'm helping you, right?"

"Well... I suppose it'll have to do," Kazusa shrugged. Why not? She'd been a good little test subject and come back for multiple sessions. Maybe this was her version of a lollipop. Swiveling in his chair, he retrieved the sleeping gas.

}-{

"What are you doing?"

Kazusa paused. The voice sounded slightly accusatory. It also sounded familiar in that far off way he'd been all too familiar with recently.

"...Kurasame?"

The vague outline of a shadow seemed to waver into existence in response to the query. Kazusa wondered if he was making it up, or if Kurasame really had been that tall.

The voice began again, not as sharply, but still with that guarded tone as if its owner were circling his prey. "Kazusa... Do you remember yet?"

"... My ears remember your voice," Kazusa half-lied. Could this really be called remembering? "But they don't remember the face it belongs to."

"..."

"I know, you started wearing a mask after... the incident," the scientist went on when the phantom didn't reply. "It's sad to think I only know that because of pictures. I was there, wasn't I? And yet... I don't know whether you would laugh or cry at what I try to do now. Probably neither, huh? Your little girl seems to remember you as pretty stoic."

"..."

"You know? I've been wondering. Is it really remembering when I'm just taking what other people knew and trying to replace my lost memories with that?"

"Did you really lose your way so easily?"

Kazusa gave a half shrug. "I'm a scientist, remember? Exploring the mechanical fabric of our world is bound to lead down a few tangents."

"And yet you pursue them knowing the pain that waits at the end."

"...What?"

"Remembering won't bring you peace... but it'll make your day better if you don't frown so much, Kupo!"

Kazusa groaned as the apparition shrunk and sprouted wings. This had to be a dream...

}-{

Kazusa stirred. It was dark. He wasn't in his bed. His sense of gravity hadn't fully reengaged, but he could sense something wrong with his posture. His face rested against the semi-comforting pillow of layered paper. Was he in his lab? No, he usually left the lights on when he went to sleep in his lab by accident.

"Mr. Kazuchi?"

Kazusa twisted towards the voice. It was slightly groggy, much like how he felt. What was the test subject doing in his room?

Wait...

Scrambling back towards his original facing, Kazusa fumbled over his desk until his hands found his matchbox. He could probably cast a fire spell, but in his current state that would be an ill advised maneuver. Striking up a match, Kazusa lit another candle and turned to his still powerless lab. What time was it? The Class Zero girl was sitting up on the test bed, looking thoroughly well rested. She was dangling her legs over the edge and kicking air in an idle motion.

"Were you having a dream, Mr. Kazuchi?"

Kazusa could've told her it was none of her business for polluting his memories of his friend, but that was behavior fit for a third rate. Kazusa was a professional. "...Yes." His mind groped for more information. What else was there to say? He couldn't quantify anything about the dream. He barely remembered what had happened.

"I had a dream, too! Wanna hear it?"

Making a quick evaluation of how useful the resulting information could be for future tests, Kazusa braced himself for sifting through the mismatched interpretations and slowly nodded. "...Yes."

"Really?"

"...Tomorrow," Kazusa added after a quick glance to his watch. Was it really that close to midnight? He'd been working himself ragged trying to unlock his memories. "Can you remember it until tomorrow?"

"Probably not," She admitted with a goofy grin. "Maybe I could write it—"

Kazusa perked up, almost ignoring the fact that the lights were flickering back on. "You can write?" Of course! Why hadn't he seen it before? "Wonderful! Get out of the test bed."

"What? Why?" the girl looked upset. Kazusa couldn't fathom why. "It's comfy, and I'm not finished."

"You can have my chair, I warmed it up for you," the scientist offered hastily, removing his lab coat and rolling up his sleeves. Pulling up the necessary machinery, he began to hook himself up to monitoring devices that were still booting up. He flipped his log book around and held it out to her. "Look, I just need you to keep track of the correlation between—"

"Uhm... okay!" The girl took the offered record before he could fully explain and started looking for a pen. "Leave it to me, Mr. Kazuchi!"

Smiling to himself, Kazusa lifted the bottle of sleeping gas. _I won't forget this one, Kurasame_.

As he closed his eyes, Kazusa felt something in him clicking together like a long broken wire re-cauterized.

It was only the beginning, but it was enough. Kazusa had seen a glimpse of what he hoped for, and even if his mind lost its way, his eyes would not forget.

 **-}End[05]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _Well... Hasty much?_

 _This one was kind of a little more thrown together than the others, but as the comedic(?) break in the series, I feel like it does alright. Kazusa and Cinque are both characters who I have mixed feelings about, but they both fit the title of "star gazer" well enough in their own right. As mentioned above, Kazusa really does just hang out in his secret library lab and gas you if you talk to him. He's not an overtly malicious fellow, but there's something creepy (and very probably illegal) about a guy gassing students in a secret lab. Once you get far enough in his quest line though, you run into some interesting figments of his humanity. Cinque, on the other hand, has a kind of off the wall personality, so in the long run, I think she'd be the only one to make repeat visits to the lab._

 _Plus, I really didn't know how to write a cohesive story from Cinque's point of view, so that's why she gets to be the supporting lead in this story instead of the narrator._

 _On another note, the first chapter should be updated with a visitor's atlas for anyone unfamiliar with Type-0 soon. If you've been reading without context, we encourage you to check it out._

 _Finally, as we hurdle towards the half-way point, Twelve Shots of Summer is still going on with new entries released weekly. If you want to stay on top of the game, you can always put an alert out on the community or hang around at our forum. We offer discussions at the Tea Table, free of charge! Check it out if you get the chance._

 _Plus, to anyone wondering, the summer semester eclipse is now over and life should be getting less hectic. I appreciate all your prayers and well wishes. Look out for next week's entry though, it may be a little... different._

 _See you around,_

 _-CG_


	6. 06-Chicken Soup for the Cyborg

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[06]Dual Trigger Extra: Brodo di Pollo por il Cyborg**

 _-[Sice, Dual Trigger AU] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 6: Written in Sand]_

 _Author's Note: You've probably noticed that this one is set in a different universe altogether. While this is still staying true to the schedule and exploring Sice as a character, it's in a bit of a different setting to shake things up a bit._

 _...And because I really wanted to write Dual Trigger. Sue me._

 _Anyway, universe notes are at the bottom. I promise the next one brings things back to Orience._

 _Apologies,_

 _-CG_

}§{

Sice had to admit, if there was a way to take the quiet warmth out of the culinary arts, the sterility of government standardization certainly did the trick. She looked at the perfect white of her Chef's frock and held back a disdainful gag. This wasn't what she'd meant when she'd sarcastically told Nine "of _course_ cooking will come in handy." How was she supposed to know he'd volunteer her for the opening?

Well, he was halfway across Europe now and she was stuck undercover looking for God knew what. Her contact wasn't making himself readily available and she was starting to get the feeling he got a kick out of not returning her sparse and duly cryptic correspondence. To all appearances, she was locked in until the higher ups closed the facility down and she and the rest of the staff quietly went their separate ways.

Or... most of the staff.

Sice didn't hide her frown as she scanned the cafeteria. A few doctors here and there, some of the more general personnel, and the support agents were still hanging around on the near side of the room.

On the far side sat the cyborgs.

They weren't out-of-a-sci-fi-book cyborgs. They actually did great impressions of normal adolescent girls most of the time. It was a nice cover. When people started dipping into possibly treasonous operations, they suspected government agents, or at least barely-initiated Camorra goons, to try to pump them full of lead. Nobody suspected twelve-year-old girls. You couldn't see their carbon fiber skeletons or the loads of neuro-drugs the poor little wretches were on, but underneath each fragile exterior was a war machine. They wouldn't be leaving if and when things got shut down. As far as Sice could tell, the Agency was counting on them to either go down, guns blazing, or something worse. This conflict wouldn't last forever; and when wars were finished, war machines tended to be finished, too.

That was sort of the lot in life for those who weren't supposed to exist. Sice could relate. Of course, her term of service was indefinite. There was no "end of the day" as far as she was concerned. She was privately contracted. She wasn't a stain on some politician's record, she was a stain on the rug the politician didn't even realize he was standing on. When things went down the tubes, she would survive. Mother would make sure of it.

In the meantime, she cooked.

Doing another idle, almost mechanical, scan of the cafeteria, Sice ducked back into the kitchen and continued her prep. It wasn't a bad life, but it wouldn't last. Sooner or later, something would change.

And they would all be gone.

}§{

Sice's first real experience with one of the cyborgs was actually more in relation to the handler of the pair. The Italian government was smart enough to not let automated death machines wander off on their own, so each girl was assigned an adult trainer and field officer known as a handler. This one's name was Laguna.

Laguna was a Portuguese man with long, dark brown hair that he tied back in a loose ponytail. His features were well defined, but rounded at the edges, cutting away whatever chance he had of looking rugged. He had a bright, cheerful demeanor and didn't have much sense for formalities; Or maybe not much sense in general, it was hard to tell. He was the kind of guy you wouldn't expect to work with government assassins.

Maybe it was part of his cover.

At any rate, he didn't fit in. When he started showing up in the kitchen, Sice more than half expected it to be the prelude to a transfer. He seemed at home there, it wouldn't be a bad match. Sice would probably tear her own ears off, sure, but she couldn't fault them on the logic of it. After all, Head-Chef Quen had a similar disposition and only barely comprehensible Italian; What was one more idiot in kitchen anyway?

Needless to say, Sice was very relieved to find out that Laguna was only a visitor in the culinary quarter of the Social Welfare Agency. The prospect of not having to put up with him on a regular basis even made her charitable enough to help him out with a little project.

"I wanna give 'em a chance to relax, y'know?" The Portuguese handler explained. "Quis is always thinkin' about the mission and what her directive is supposed to be. But I figure, if you spend all your time with your head in the trenches, how do you get outta there?"

Sice shrugged and kept stirring. "Maybe they don't," she intoned flatly. It seemed like an insensitive subject to throw at the cyborgs; trying to make them think beyond their pre-written existence. Kind of like telling someone they were spending their whole life wrong.

"You really think so?" Laguna asked. His strangely eager tone was almost confusing until he followed up, "Well... even if she's not stuck on the mission, Quis still deserves a break. Not much reward for 'em besides what we handlers cook up."

Sice scowled and tried not to rip the dough she was working with. Apparently, she would have to be a little more precise. "No; Like, maybe they don't get out of here," she clarified as she stuffed and folded calzones. "Maybe it's better you just leave them in the trenches instead of leading them out to no-man's-land."

"Eh... can't say I agree," the handler pushed on, an impish and totally inappropriate grin surfacing. "The other guys do it in their own ways. You know Jose?"

Sice gave him a flat stare. Yes. Everyone knew Jose Croce. The head handler's little brother drew a range of opinions from the SWA staff. Sice was inclined towards the psychotic depression view held by the more cynical camps.

Laguna held her stare for a moment, waiting in vain for a response, before slowly picking up his poorly-founded lecture again. "Well, he takes his girl out for dinner sometimes, right? And that German guy, he gets his girl teddy bears. What'd be the point of that if we were just trying to keep them under our thumbs? Maybe we don't get it all the way, but I think all us handlers understand our kids are more than just a service record."

"And Marco?"

"Marco?" Laguna gave her a guileless look and scratched at the back of his head as if friction would jog his memory.

"You know, the invalid's handler," Sice prodded. She wasn't going to let him get away with a rose colored lens that easily. " _He_ sure seems to think his 'girl' is pretty much summed up in her report cards."

"...Are they good report cards?"

Sice sighed. "Don't you pay any attention? She's the one who still has to use a wheel chair on her off days. Her 'conditioning', or whatever you call that stuff they give them, its running into problems, breaking her down. She's late for every meal that isn't brought to her in the infirmary and can't remember the staff members' names for the life of her even though she's been here for years. Doctors don't seem too surprised though... I think they saw this coming."

 _Maybe they even planned it that way_.

Sice made slits on the calzones and tried to shake her scowl. It put her in a bad mood to think about it that way. The poor kids probably hadn't even had a say in it. They said that most of them were terminal patients anyway before the conversions. It wasn't like they were losing much. And yet it still piqued Sice's temper to a raging inferno to think about the injustice of it all. Two wrongs didn't make a right, and whatever twisted sicko thought they were doing the kids a favor by writing out their fates could rot in their rosewood office for all Sice cared.

" _Okay... So what would you do?"_ Sice could practically hear Eight trying to get her to take this rationally. He was always like that, trying to keep everyone's head on even and reason things out. No matter what happened, Eight would try to be the sensible anchor point. Sometimes, Sice hated that about him. It was easy to see when things were wrong, it was hard to see how to make them right without breaking the laws of the living universe. Eight was rational in the hopes that the world would be rational back to him. For similar reasons, Sice was cynical.

"...And you didn't?"

Sice paused, mentally backtracking to where she'd left off the conversation to make sense of Laguna's reply. They'd been talking about the cyborgs, then Marco's cyborg in particular, and then...

She gave an unlady-like snort and glared at the cook book as she flipped to the next recipe. "Can't say; I'm not a doctor. From what everyone else says though, its a miracle the little birdcatchers made it this far. I guess I just..."

"Just what?"

"Forget it," Sice told him. She flipped the hair out of her eyes and set to work on a batch of butter cookies. _I just thought that they'd be saved and that was it. Actually, I wasn't thinking; I was being stupid. We can't really make anything last forever, can we?_

"Eh... whatever you say," Laguna shrugged it off and continued his side of the prep. For whatever else Sice could say about the guy, at least he was handy in the kitchen.

"But, what if..."

Even if he didn't know how to take a hint.

}§{

Laguna's cyborg was named Quistis. Quistis Trepe on her fake school ID, but that version wouldn't get engraved on her segment of the columbarium when her term of service was up. She was a teen on the brink of her prime growing years and stood a good head shorter than Sice. She wore glasses, a rarity for a cyborg due to the optics enhancements implemented at conversion, and had a partiality for warm-to-dusky color schemes in her personal ensemble.

They met shortly after Laguna's little picnic. Sice found Quistis agreeable in that the cyborg wasn't as loquacious as her handler; admittedly an easy requirement to fulfill. Unpacking the left-overs and storing them in the walk-in fridge went a lot faster without chatter. Quistis seemed obedient, unsurprisingly of course, but she didn't seem tsundere or overly willing about it. There was a different sort of quality to her relationship with Laguna.

Within the little world of the SWA, handler's could pretty much treat their cyborgs however they wanted. Sure, there were certain unspoken limits, but for the most part, anything went.

Cyborgs, on the other hand, were hard-wired loyal. They had autonomy up to a point, but even the most strong willed had a weakness for her handler. Quistis still did whatever Laguna was saying, but it more seemed to be a coincidence of interests than the conditioning talking. Laguna explained it as an eagerness to get down to the resource room to prepare for the next mission. Given Sice's estimates of Laguna, the resource room was the last place Quistis would be dragging Laguna if she was trying to please him. Not unless she was watching out for his hide, since he didn't seem to do that awfully well. Whatever it was, her agenda didn't run exactly parallel with Laguna's, and that was refreshing.

Sice still doubted the girl had a future beyond the campus walls.

}§{

The next cyborg wasn't met through her handler. Of course, it was hard to meet through someone who was dead. Head-Chef Quen tried to relate the tale in broken sentences, telling Sice about the cyborg left behind when her 'big brother' got rubbed out on leave. Strangely enough, Sice had never encountered the little wraith. Apparently the loss had been so bad that they'd done a hard reset on the girl's brainwashing. Just like that, she forgot all about the guy who used to be the center of her world. Well, maybe not all the way. Old habits died hard, even for a cyborg. Anyway, the girl was a lab rat now, and, as far as Quen told it, it wouldn't be unlikely if she stayed that way until 'retirement'.

When Sice finally met the ghost of fratello past, the first thing she noticed was that her secondary objective had been sitting under her nose the whole time.

It was almost spooky how much the girl looked like her sister.

Dark, straight hair running full down her back; a composed, calculating liquid brown gaze hidden behind glasses; and that soft almost-frown that apparently ran in the family. No doubt about it, this was Fleda Johansson.

Sice had paused for the barest moment when the girl appeared in the kitchen and received some special rations from Head-Chef. There was no time to stop and stare, of course, but it did make Sice almost wish she had someone to talk to. It was Queen's little sister, right there, _alive_. The one thing Queen had asked Sice to keep an eye out for when it was decided she would be heading to Italy.

 _Maybe it's a look alike,_ Sice tried to tell herself, continuing to stir. _Maybe they got someone else who happens to be the spitting image of Queen five years back._

 _Maybe I'm just mad I can't do anything about it_.

That was the problem. Even if she had just positively identified the target, there wasn't much she could do short of blowing her cover. She was out of contact with Queen and the others until her link to the outside world started cooperating. What good would it do to tell Fleda?

No... not Fleda. Sice had heard the stories, conditioning wiped away the past. The girl probably didn't even remember Queen.

So Sice waited and watched, biding her time. She tried to think of something to say to after-Fleda. It was infuriating to think that now, right when she actually had an objective in reach, she still couldn't do anything. Almost like fate was cutting her off and forcing its way.

Still, she wouldn't be deterred. That was the point of Operation Agito: to change the world. Cooperating with fate wasn't on the agenda. No matter how much waiting it took, Sice would emerge victorious.

In the meantime, she kept both eyes open and tried not to let Head-Chef Quen catch her scowling.

}§{

It was a cold, rainy day when they met next. Almost everyone was off campus. Sice was brewing chicken soup in anticipation of the ensuing colds tomorrow would bring, after-Fleda had the day off from testing and had been given access to the kitchen for her own purposes. The feeling of that invisible wall of fate still hung between them.

Well, not for much longer if Sice had anything to say about it.

"Hey," Sice had never been good with introductions, but she couldn't just sit there going stir crazy. "You've been here a while, right?"

After-Fleda gave her the same keen measuring look Queen gave Nine whenever he was missing the point by an astronomic margin. _"_ _Where to begin..."_ She seemed to say. Apparently, the conditioning still enforced her sense of respect. "Yes, that's right."

 _Longer than you_.

The unsaid words hung in the air, supported by after-Fleda's calm stare. As far as the cyborg was concerned, this wasn't Sice's domain. The campus was her whole little world, Sice was just a visitor.

Sice pushed down a reactionary scowl and pushed on. "So... what happens next?"

"Painting," after-Fleda answered. Her even, composed tone was just a tad less developed than Queen's. "If it's still raining after that, I'll practice piano. If not, I'll go and check on my garden."

"No, I mean: What happens after all of this," Sice sighed. An irate hint was trying to slip its way into her voice and she only had half the heart to fight it.

"I suppose I'll go to bed and wake up tomorrow to do more tests."

"After that too."

After-Fleda's tone dipped to what Sice only recognized as wry irony because of her earlier acquaintance."Don't you think I'm the wrong person to be asking about that?"

And yet, Sice had to press the point, just to be sure. "Probably," she allowed, not looking up from her pot of soup. "Doesn't stop you from having an answer."

"...I don't know."

Sice paused. "You don't, huh?" Of all the people on the planet, she'd expect a dud cyborg to have a pretty lucid grasp on where their life was headed.

"I know I'll die eventually," after-Fleda admitted, her stable voice refusing to betray any emotion on the subject. "You will too, someday. But I don't know what happens in between."

"Besides gardening, baking, painting, and tests, right?"

After-Fleda gave her sister's thoughtful frown and kept rolling out whatever she was working on at the cutting table. "I hope those things stay the same. But who knows what's gonna happen tomorrow?"

"Oh, I could make a few predictions," Sice assured the cyborg. _I know I'll still be here, at least_.

"It's funny that you'd say that here of all places," after-Fleda said, her inflection indicating she thought it was anything but. "It may not seem like it to you, but nothing is set in stone here. Do you know how long they gave most of us to live when we first arrived?"

"Right, like _you_ can remember." Sice had the uncomfortable feeling that after-Fleda was getting the upper hand.

"They said three days for the last one. She's been in operation for months now."

"Great. Do you think she'll out live the whole Padania thing?"

After-Fleda shrugged. "Stranger things have happened. We've cheated death once already, haven't we?"

"Well... aren't you the little optimist."

"It's not optimistic," the cyborg corrected. "It's statistical."

"Oh?" Sice arched an eyebrow. "I thought this government had a track record for erasing black spots. Or is this little operation not case-and-point?"

"The odds are changing," after-Fleda said simply. "Maybe I don't know what the government plans to do with us when this is over, but I've read the consensus of the research staff. The non-war application for cybernetic technology is still quite broad and keeping existing test subjects is much easier than procuring and training new ones."

"And if that doesn't work so well?"

"Then who knows?" After-Fleda tossed her hair back and kept working. "My future's changed before. At this point, what's a forecast mean anyway?"

Sice pursed her lips and removed the soup from the burner. "Forecasts, huh? You're sure you're not just trying to escape the future?"

"Like I said, we'll both die someday," the cyborg said. "But it's what we do in between that's important, isn't it?"

"...Yeah, I guess you're right."

Outside, as if a switch had been flicked, the pounding rain dropped to a trickle.

 **-}End[06]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _Ah... how I've missed writing Dual Trigger. Yes, I do have a tendency to slip into Platonic dialogue, but there's just so much philosophy to be had behind the scenes. Maybe I'm not taerkitty, but I find it heartening that I can write Gunslinger Girl without relying on action sequences. Now I just need to get that heart-wrenching thing down..._

 _Anyway, character exposition: Sice is an interesting little bag of tricks, and one I don't want to confuse with Cater. While Cater's focused on the Here and Now, Sice has a broader scope on things. It's often said in online manuals and such that she has a strong sense of justice beneath her teasing sarcasm, so I can only conjecture that the latter stems from a disappointment with the world. She knows what it should look like, so she's loathe to accept the broken version. Something like that, anyway. It is also noted that in the manga she has an obsession with food. So why not make her a chef, right? Her fighting style relies on remaining constantly in motion, so doing a change themed story seemed like a fitting move._

" _After-Fleda" is actually named Claes in the original Gunslinger Girl universe. Not only does she bear a striking resemblance to Queen of Class Zero, but she actually shares a seiyu in Japanese (Sadly, not in English). Touching on this connection here is something I've been wanting to do ever since I started writing Dual Trigger. If I ever get around to finishing this series, just know that this little lost episode might be important._

 _Oh, and for anyone who read DT Extra: Un Partito di Te, this story was for you._

 _Anyway, that's it for now. Go and enjoy some of the other, less-eccentric one shots produced for this week's prompt at the Twelve Shots of Summer Community. Seriously, Amulet Misty is back, so you should at least go say hi to her. Also, as promised, here are the in-universe notes for the Dual Trigger not-Orience-ness of this story._

 _Till next time,_

 _-CG_

 **In-Universe Notes:**

 **-** Setting:-

 **Gunslinger Girl** : An anime/manga about adolescent girls remade into combat cyborgs by the Italian government via the Social Welfare Agency(SWA). The meat of the series covers the girls' plights as well as that of their Handlers, adult men assigned to the training and field supervision of the cyborgs. Together, these teams are known as fratelli(singular: fratello). In order to make the cyborgs combat worthy, as well as to prevent the organic bodies from rejecting the cybernetic components, the girls are given a drug known as "conditioning" that often affects their thought patterns and erases the memories of their previous lives.

 **Dual Trigger** : Dual Trigger is then taking the Gunslinger Girl setting and crossing it over with Final Fantasy characters. It adds one or two elements, such as the additional agenda Sice is a part of, but that's all a longer story for a longer fic. For now, this is all you need to know.

-Persona:-

 **Laguna:** Originally from Final Fantasy VIII, Laguna is here seen as an SWA Handler, recruited into the organization after illegally hopping the border in pursuit of a syndicate that kidnapped his adoptive niece, Ellone. Although he genuinely does have a fair amount of skill (and luck) with gun-play, he is regarded as lazy and incompetent for actions like leaving his cyborg to write his reports and tendency to pursue clues regarding Ellone's possible whereabouts over mission objectives. It is rumored the SWA technical staff doesn't suspect him to survive his time with the Agency.

 **Quistis:** Also from Final Fantasy VIII, Quistis is here seen as Laguna's cyborg and is roughly a 1.9 model, acting as a prototype for the second generation. Because Laguna was essentially forced into the Agency by one of its sponsors, Quistis was conditioned for him with a short term employment in mind. Thus, with the lightest load possible, Quistis is prone to struggling with feelings of loathing for her handler more than feelings of affection or attachment like many of the other girls. The hope of the SWA techs is that the lighter conditioning will allow her to be reconditioned after Laguna's projectedly inevitable demise; in the meantime though, it makes for a few bumps in their fratello, leaving Quistis to answer questions about her thoughts and feelings often left up to the conditioning.

She wears glasses because she was told to.

 **Sice:** Originally a member of Class Zero in Final Fantasy Type-0/Agito, Sice is here portrayed as part of a enigmatic international organization infiltrating the SWA. Her connections to the scene, a certain Senator Caelum among them, have gotten her passed in with relative ease, but her mission as an observer is currently at a stand still. In the meantime, she works as a kitchen assistant to Head-Chef Quina Quen, the gourmand from Final Fantasy IX.

 **Claes:** A cyborg who lost her handler, Claes is now the resident lab rat on the SWA campus. Every new cybernetic adjustment gets tested on her before being passed on to the active agents. In her free time, she enjoys a wide range of activities and full use of the SWA campus facilities. Because Claes is removed from the flow of action and isn't bound to the will of a handler, she has more time to reflect on her situation and is regarded as the wisest of the cyborgs. Within Dual Trigger canon, Claes's past before her conversion may be coming back to find her.

-Additional:-

A columbarium is a memorial building meant for interring cremated remains.

The title of this story translates to "Chicken Soup for the Cyborg".

Claes's original name, Fleda Claes Johanson, is the source of Sice's reference to her as "After-Fleda".


	7. 07-Extracurricular Average

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[07]Extracurricular Average**

 _-[Seven, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 7: Limit Breaker]_

Momentum and direction, smooth motions. Sweep, sweep, thrust. Feel the energy moving through each link of the whip and understand the exponential possibilities and dangers with each minute turn. Most cadets considered the chain whip a weapon more trouble to train with than it was worth on the battlefield. While other weapons were easy to pick up and difficult to master, the chain whip was just plain difficult to use at all. It required high endurance and unfailing dexterity. One false move and the thing was just as dangerous to you as it was to your enemy.

Naturally, it was just the weapon for Seven.

}-{

"You know Class Zero? They've all sort of got a cold aura around them, but Seven's got to have the coldest of them all."

"Hey, did you see Seven on the field last mission? She was a machine! Those guys never saw it coming!"

"I bet you Seven's got a soul of steel. Like, death _dies_ when it tries to take her down."

By the time Iscah returned to Dominion control, the whispers around Akademia were getting quite out of hand and Seven could only wonder if it were a joke. Seven didn't consider herself unapproachable. In fact, Seven rarely considered herself at all. She was an overachiever, but not in the same sense as Cater or Queen. Rather, Seven took a more holistic stance on her education. She trained tirelessly in the art of her weapon, but scored in the top-four grades-wise on a regular basis. Not only that, but as the oldest member of Class Zero, Seven also took it upon herself to look out for the others. If anyone ever got sick, she would take notes for them in class and bring them rations from the cafeteria; If someone misplaced something, she was usually the first to find it; and when trouble struck on the battle front, Seven could be counted on to straighten things out with a most favorable lack of allied fatalities. Were it not for the persistent rumors that she was interested in nothing less than the kill, she would probably be the most popular student in Akademia.

And she didn't even realize it.

}-{

"Hold it right there!"

Seven paused as the voice boomed down the empty hallway. It was the end of the day and most students had already gone to the dorms. She was only out late to perfect a particularly difficult whip technique.

So why would anyone else be waiting around?

Re-straightening her posture, Class Zero's eldest member turned to give an innocent questioning look at her pursuer. "Yes?"

The hallway's other occupant, a young man wearing a cadet uniform with a black Class Tenth kerchief, gave a smug grin and presented a small badge."Kanto Doramaki, Akademia Press," the cadet stated, using his other hand to jab his chest with his thumb. "I'm here to get to the bottom of this!"

"Bottom of...what?" Seven tilted her head as a confused frown took hold. What was he talking about? Did she forget something in her last report? Maybe there had been a related incident she forgot to cover. Was she being framed?

"The story all of Akademia is talking about!" Kanto exclaimed, spreading his arms wide and his eyes wider. "The story of Seven: Ultimate Suzaku Warrior! If I could get an exclusive out of you, I'd shoot to the top of the class just like that! I might even get a date! The possibilities are endless! So I won't take no for an answer, okay?!"

Seven regarded the Tenth's practically-mouth-foaming furor with patience before doing something nobody but her friends would expect.

"Alright, so what did you want to talk about?"

}-{

When the rest of Akademia realized Seven wasn't actually Sice's equally brooding older sister, the floodgates of adoration were cast open and the reputation Seven had ignorantly carried with her became a thing of the past. What she really didn't understand was how the rumors had gotten started in the first place. She was a good operative, but why did everybody assume that made her a loner? Was it her skill? Someone so dedicated couldn't possibly be human? Or was it something more basic, like her hair cut? Maybe her haphazard, mid-length shag gave the appearance of social apathy...

Whatever the case, once everyone realized how nice Seven was, there was no end to the requests.

"Hey, Seven! We're writing an aftermath report on Lorica; wanna give us some firsthand intel?"

"Seven, how goes? I'm trying to learn chain-whip like you! Could you show me some moves after class?"

"Seven, Seven, Seven, Seven, Seven! We're, like, planning a dance for the Cadet classes. Could you, like, be the head of our chairman committee whatever-thing?"

And no matter how ludicrous the tasks seemed to her classmates, Seven would always accept.

}-{

It was close to midnight and Seven was again sitting at the desk in her dorm room. A stack of reference books framed the current workload: a series of history lectures that some Class Sixth students were having trouble with. They'd complained that the record seemed incomplete, as if it were patched together by second hand accounts. Around one A.M., Seven was beginning to agree.

"Seven." From the top bunk, Seven's roommate stirred, but didn't get up. "You should go to bed. We have a mission tomorrow."

Seven stared dumbly at the back of her roommate's head for a moment. "But... I can't..."

With an exasperated sigh, Queen rolled over and faced the overachieving insomniac. "Is your name on that assignment?"

"...No?"

"Are you asking or telling?"

"Uh... telling," Seven confirmed, rubbing her eyes. Despite being the eldest, she didn't quite have the leaderly qualities that made everyone think Queen was the senior member. "Why do you...?"

"Then put it away and go to bed," Queen ordered, calmly staring Seven down. In a way, it was a wonder _she_ didn't have the austere reputation Seven once had.

"But... I need to..."

"Seven."

"...Yes?"

"Sleep."

"...Alright."

}-{

"...Kupo?"

"Mmmnh?" Seven forced her eyes into focus and looked towards the lectern where Moglin was beating hir wings in vexation. She was in the Class Zero lecture hall and she couldn't even remember how she'd gotten there. How long had class been going? What were they talking about? The silver-haired whipmaiden frowned and tried to decipher her note book for some clues. Were they talking about general war strategies from the third Lorican-Militesi crystal war? Or was this about the Class First honors banquet?

No... honors banquets weren't a subject. That had to be some of her extracurricular work crowding the page.

"Kupo... try to stay awake! I may not be as stern as somekupos, but it's still important to pay attention!"

"Yep, can't make good jokes without context," Jack chimed in from a few rows back. "Lose your focus and you'll flop."

"Yeah... like you're one to talk," Beside Seven, Sice muttered under her breath and quietly tilted her notes page to give the older girl a glance. "Fire SHG methodology and tactics. You owe me one."

Seven fought down a grimace and nodded. "Thank you."

Was this becoming too much for her to handle? Could it be that she was finally reaching her limit?

Fighting to keep her eyes open, Seven didn't realize how long the question cycled in her mind until the end of class.

}-{

On many counts, whips were an odd beast to do battle with. When Seven first started, it was difficult to get an efficient first swing in without breaking movement and leaving herself open. After that, the problem was more the opposite: she just couldn't seem to stop once she started. Once she picked up enough momentum, where was it supposed to end?

"I guess I just can't say no," Seven sighed, head between her hands. It was lunchtime now and Queen had ordered an emergency intervention meeting. Now Seven's classmates were grilling her for the source of the problem over krakka salad and mandragora root. "I just... if someone needs me, I _have_ to help them. Every time I see an opportunity, I have to take it."

"Trying to do everything is sometimes the hard way of doing nothing," King, a blond gunslinger with a mullet and a penchant for terseness, narrowed his eyes at her from across the table.

"Yup, discretion is the better part of fan mail!" Cinque added, reaching out to tap Seven on the nose. "What's the point of doing something for someone else if it doesn't get done anyway?"

"It gets done," Seven assured her classmate, before allowing a trailing, "...Eventually."

Beside her, Eight put a hand on her shoulder. "It's very admirable that you've accomplished so much," the ginger-haired martial artist said quietly. Ever the serious one, Eight somehow maintained an awareness of all dimensions of the situation, social, functional, and otherwise. "However, if this starts to affect your performance, isn't it better for those you've already decided to help if you limit your load? Is it fair to decrease what you promised them?"

"Limit..." Seven frowned. Limits... how did one deal with limits? That was part of why she'd chosen an extendable chain-whip. Weapons of fixed length had limits. Short weapons were easy to handle, but were limited in the range they could cover. Longer weapons could fell enemies at a distance, but had a tendency to become ungainly. A retractable chain-whip could adjust its length though, and thus claimed advantages of both categories. How could she apply that here? What was she missing?

"All of you, shut up!" Cater ordered, sternly from the head of the table. "What's the point of criticizing her if we don't do anything to help her out? Fighting against your boundaries isn't weakness. Sure, it might damn well get you killed, but that's not about standing up to the challenge; that's about standing up to the challenge _wrong_."

King tilted his head and grunted. Seven couldn't tell if it was scoffing or approval. "So, you're saying..."

"...It's not wrong for Seven to help people, she just needs a more efficient way of doing it," Eight continued, nodding. "I see. Unfortunately..."

"...Seven's just one person, and she's pressed herself to the end of her rope." Queen adjusted her glasses and raised a challenging eyebrow in Cater's direction. "So how do you propose she breaks that limit?"

"H-hey!" the hot tempered gun-mage slammed her hands on the table as her cheeks flared red. "It's not like I know! I'm just saying: Seven wants to push her potential as far as it'll go. Isn't that something we're trying to encourage?"

"Well, maybe we'll just have to lend her some of _our_ potential until then," Cinque butted in. "Everything's easier with a classmate, right?"

Seven was about to gently point out that potential wasn't a tradeable commodity when Eight clarified the statement.

"So, you're saying, if we helped Seven with her extracurricular load, then the same good would get done without depressing her overall performance..." the martial artist stroked his chin and leaned back on his bench. "You know... it just might work."

}-{

In the beginning, it didn't work so well. Operation "Help Seven Not Fail", as it was dubbed by Cinque, was a disjointed and at times cumbersome effort that saw limited participation from Class Zero members who were ahead of the curve enough to take on the extra load. However, as the movement gained momentum, it straightened out and began to move more fluidly. With Seven at the center, Class Zero slowly became a valuable resource to the rest of Akademia not only on the battlefield, but off of it as well.

"Only one question now," Eight said to her over lunch on the roof when the operation hit full swing.

Seven, well rested, and enjoying the time away from her sizeable fan movement raised her eyebrows and smiled slightly. "Oh?"

"Yeah... what happens when Class Zero as a whole hits its limit?"

"Easy enough," She told him, looking to the bright summer sky. "Guess we'll just have to find someone else to help us break that one as well."

 **-}End[07]{-**

 _Author's notes:_

 _Okay, so maybe this one wasn't my best due to a number of factors. I don't really have a solid handle on Seven as a character, so she's something of a challenge to write. Suffice to say, she seems more distinct off the battlefield than on._

 _Still, I hope this was another nice, lighter one to add to the stack. After [04], I felt like I needed to take a step back for a while and explore the happier aspects of Class Zero's existence. After all, what's a finale without emotional attachment? ...Or maybe we're just stuck in the Fumofu second season waiting for the completely epic third season. We'll see how the prompts play it._

 _Anyway, a quick note, Moglin (and all moogles) use unique gender-ambiguous pronouns like "hir"(possessive) and "ze"(personal subjective) rather than the traditional "his/her" and "he/she". So... yes, that is not a typo._

 _Well, I hope you enjoyed it (somehow). Next week, we get to Eight, my personal favorite of Class Zero. Hopefully I can do the Ginger-Ninja justice._

 _Until then,_

 _-CG_


	8. 08-Trust

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[08]Trust**

 _-[Eight, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 8: Partners in Crime]_

When he grabbed the rifle barrel, the heat could still be felt through his combat gauntlets. When he broke it in two upon his knee, he could feel the dull pain burning in his already exhausted leg. And when his punch shattered goggles, when he forcibly dislocated limbs, when he stopped an enemy soldier with his bare hands, he could feel their trembling life through his fingers. The tender, fragile pulse of life held so close he could break it in an instant...

In a way, that was why he couldn't do it.

}-{

Eight twitched. The air was warmer than it should have been. He wasn't in Milites anymore. Popping an eye on his surroundings, the diminutive martial artist noted he was indoors. Crimson seemed to be the dominant theme, indicative of a Rubrum leaning. No Militesi citizen would be caught dead associating with the hated "Reds" of the Dominion. On closer inspection, he realized with a sinking feeling that this room was more familiar than simply the colors of his homeland.

He was in the Akademia Sorcery Department.

His hand drifted to his chest and probed gently, putting the pieces together. Just as he suspected, the muscle was still tender there. Whether he'd been shot or stabbed, he couldn't remember. What mattered was that he had died and Mother had brought him back. While there were a number of special circumstances surrounding Class Zero, that was perhaps the most profound one: that even if its members fell in battle, Dr. Arecia Al-Rashia had the ability to revive them. They were, after all, treated as her own children.

 _But why just us?_ Eight frowned as the question surfaced again. It wasn't the first time he'd considered it. _What makes us special enough to save while others die?_

Blinking his way into focus, the gingery haired boy sat up, flex-testing various muscle groups by instinct. He knew the quality of the work already; in a few hours, he wouldn't be able to tell he'd ever been under. For whatever was said behind her back about her, the Arch Sorceress was more powerful than many of her detractors would like to let on.

It still didn't answer why she limited her blessings to Class Zero.

The scent of chrysanthemum-rose smoke drifted his way. The scent of Mother's favorite cigarette. It was warm and smooth, contrary to the abrasive nicotine one would expect. It suited Mother like that.

"Ace told me what happened," Dr. Arecia, seated nearby at her desk, took another drag from her cigarette and adjusted her glasses. "Eight... what's holding you back out there?"

Eight pursed his lips. "Do you have time for a long explanation?" He asked politely.

"I can make time, Darling," Mother assured him, pushing at some paper work on her desk as if to illustrate. "Go on, try me. I'm all ears."

"Have you ever... hated death?"

"That's a question, Darling, not an explanation," Mother chuckled. The hand wielding her cigarette holder bounced, tracing thin, lavender lines in the air. "But... well, I suppose I'd have to say no."

"Is that so?" Eight raised his eyebrows. It was rare that any of Class Zero was willing to second guess Mother. It was only logical consistency that galvanized him to press the point. If she didn't hate death, why would she reverse it for her children?

"It's a function of the universe," She elaborated, waving circles. "Souls go on regardless. What we see and what there is are two different worlds, Darling. Even if the blessings of the Crystals erase the deceased's existence from what we can see and know, that does not mean they have turned to oblivion. Isn't it easier for those left behind to not know what they have lost in the meantime?"

"..." Eight hunched forward as he brought his feet together in a lotus stretch. To not know what was lost... it was funny that she put it that way. It was quite by accident that he'd discovered what it felt like to kill; or, more accurately, what it felt like to hurt someone. Most people didn't remember. After all, when your victims were wiped from history, executioners didn't bring any lingering doubts with them into the future. When you only beat someone to the brink of death, the situation was different. You remembered what you did and developed a response to it.

Eight's response was to not kill.

Some would say it was an odd choice, others would go so far as to call it masochistic; for Eight, each memory preserved reminded him there was one more life he left that he could have taken. In one of the oddest crimes of Orience, refusing to continue the cycle of death, his accomplices were his enemies.

"Always thinking things out, aren't you?" Mother smiled and daintily crossed her legs. "Does it hurt so much that you can't see the long run of things? Then how about this: show me what's so important about this and I'll help you. Prove that something good comes out of their spared lives."

Eight, ever the rationalist, weighed the option carefully. "And if I can't prove it?"

"Let's not worry about that, Darling; I know you better."

Slowly, the boy nodded and got to his feet. "Alright... I'll do it. I'll show you there's another way."

"Good, good," Dr. Arecia exhaled lavender smoke and closed her eyes. "Best of luck, Darling, and may the Crystal guide you."

}-{

Killing was too easy. With the right tool, the flexing of a finger could destroy the human body. Eight had seen the mechanics behind it. Whether it was an Imperial mortar or a Dominion bomb spell, the civilizations of Orience had learned nothing if not efficient warfare. In a world where the dead were forgotten, prisoners served a rather limited usefulness. Most couldn't be converted and it wasn't like there was a precedent to be set. Whether or not you kept or killed your prisoners, the next ones wouldn't know. Every now and again, Class Ninth would try to capture a unit for intel, but that was about it.

In a world like that, it wasn't hard to see why most people looked at Eight funny when he said he wasn't finishing the job on purpose.

"Weapons take lives too easily," as his explanation was often quoted. That was why he studied martial arts from all over Orience. His body was his weapon, and he had perfect control over it. While most went into battle with steel at their belt, Eight just made sure to wear gauntlets so he didn't break his wrists slugging through Magitek Armor plating.

There were obvious downsides. For one, he had to put in the extra physical training to bring his body up to the level of a weapon. While most of his classmates slept in the early mornings, he was out at the arena doing knuckle push-ups until his hands cracked and bled. While some could make up for a lack of reach with a weapon, Eight had little choice but to become faster and more flexible.

His natural build did him few favors. He was lean, scrawny by some standards. He got made fun of for his height when he was a kid. Standing at only 5'5" fully grown, he could only suspect he had some Concordian in his blood. Outstanding muscle growth wasn't inherent in his DNA. Whatever he had, he'd fought tooth and nail for. Tearing straight through a Militesi Colossus was the sort of thing most people had trouble with when they had sharp instruments to work with. He had to do it through shear blunt force.

It wasn't to show off or prove anything. Some of the rumors going around Akademia might have said otherwise, but Eight didn't care. The light at the end of the tunnel, the one thing that kept him on this path, was the hope that he wouldn't have to kill. That he was right to be going the extra mile.

}-{

" _Hey! If it isn't the no-kill man! Listen, I've got a teensy little favor to ask you..."_

Eight marched on across scorched ground, sweat drenching his uniform.

" _You know Lorica? I need someone tough to check out the inner depths of the ruins. We've been getting reports of survivors_."

Heat radiated from the very earth beneath his feet as he made his way through the wasteland. It was a realm forsaken by the heavens.

" _You don't have to... but could you bring one back alive? Science and Tech wants to know how they weren't wiped by the Ultima Bomb_. _Something like that must be invincible to death!_ "

When he started down into the crater, it felt like he was descending into a tomb.

Lorica had never been known for a homely aesthetic. Chambers were burrowed out of the bedrock and adorned with chains, rifts in the floor were filled with jagged monuments and war trophies. There was a heavy fog everywhere. Written into the very walls, Eight could make out streaks of dulled red. While the military was viewed as a necessary evil by some Rubrumites, fighting was a way of life for the Loricans. Theirs was a land unforgiving to the weak.

"Remind me again what we're looking for," Cater muttered beside him. She gingerly toed a discarded helm and wrinkled her nose as ashes sprinkled out. "I think I preferred duking it out back in Ingram with those Militesi meatheads..."

"Survivors," Eight replied, keeping his eyes on his surroundings. The monsters they'd fought to get this far had already been enough of a challenge without allowing them the advantage of surprise. "You still have that shot I asked the Sorcery to make for you, right?"

"What, this?" Eight didn't look, but he heard the gun-mage bounce a couple of bullets in her hand. "Yeah...took 'em a while though. They had to dig pretty deep into the archives to find any manalchemy related to sleep. Guess a non-lethal spell like that didn't do a whole lot for the war effort."

"I wonder if it was the same story in peace times," Deuce mused. The brunette girl was trailing behind while studying the Lorican décor with a frown.

"Like a cure for insomnia?" answered Cater. "What would be keepin' 'em awake then? Hell, what keeps anyone awake? Worrying about stuff they can't change, that's what. If you ask me, those crybabies deserve it."

"Then maybe it's worth it to stay awake," Eight put in, keeping an even, diplomatic tone.

"Oh, puh-leeze!" Cater quickly waved off the idea. "Show me someone who's happy they wasted the night tearing their hair out and I'll show you a bald idiot."

Eight pursed his lips and questioned for a moment if Cater had been the best choice to bring along for a mission like this.

}-{

Getting further into the tunnels was a long, grueling process. It turned out something other than the Loricans had decided to take up residence in light of the recent vacancy. In a way, Eight was glad for the diversion. It kept Cater on her toes and gave him a good opportunity to warm up. Dispatching monsters filled with mindless rage was, surprisingly, an almost calming experience. There was no fear, no sorrow, no conviction, just strength against strength.

On the other hand, it bothered him that something would live to fight without provocation.

"Maybe it's the nature of Lorica," Cater huffed when they found a spare moment trudging down the gauntlet of the abandoned halls. "I mean... What's the whole place centered on? How are you supposed to face war if you don't want to fight?"

"How are you supposed to live if you do?" Deuce murmured back. "I don't know, Cater, maybe it's all a self-fulfilling cycle... if you put yourself close to death, what's to stop it from taking you too?"

"Close to death, huh?" Eight felt the pull of the idea. He liked it instinctively, it was vindication for what he fought for. Maybe that was all the more reason he was wary of it. Did becoming an agent of death save one from it? Or further ensure their demise? Or were the two related at all? After all, everyone supposedly died someday. In the Akademia cemetery, some graves listed the cause of death as natural. Eight didn't know what that meant, but he could grasp the implication well enough. "Well... whatever it is, let's hope the Loricans have _some_ sense of reason. Our mission orders do say to bring them back alive."

"Yeah... Don't know about _you_ two, but I'm gonna take that as _try_ to bring them back alive," Cater retorted. "A couple of seven-foot killing machines don't sound like something we should mess around with."

"Who said we were messing around?" Eight asked, giving a tight smile. "Besides, I thought you liked a challenge."

Cater snorted and moved for the door to the next chamber. "Challenges aren't any fun if you're setting yourself up to lose. If it comes down to it, I _will_ blast their brains out, and _you_ aren't gonna—"

" _Hrraagh!"_

The party froze in shock as the stone disk constituting the door to the inner sanctum flew out of its moorings and flipped towards their position.

Eight was the first to react, grabbing Deuce by the wrist and bolting to the side. Cater, caught in the direct line of the projectile, dove forward, slipping under the door's arc, but putting herself that much closer to whatever was on the other side in the process. Locking eyes, Eight and Deuce exchanged a determined look. There was no time to debate now, what mattered was coming home together.

Moving to his feet, Eight again substituted his speed for Deuce's and brought them both under the flipping disc on its next spin. Cater, on the other side, was firing into the far chamber with reckless abandon and letting a string of expletives fly with equal discretion.

Clear of the danger, Eight and Deuce separated. The flute girl began a rallying crescendo and the martial artist rushed forward to aid their comrade. Ducking past Cater's cover fire, Eight found himself faced with what he could only surmise was a Lorican.

It... didn't look human.

Claws extended from bony hands and feet, lips and gums peeled back to reveal rows of fangs. The creature bellowed as it brought a six-foot chunk of iron down towards him. Eight pivoted to the side and drove his fist into the thing's arm. He could feel his knuckles cracking on the impact.

"What... what the hell are these guys?" Cater demanded, filling the foremost monster's arm with magicite infused lead. It shrugged it off and threw the elongated iron piece that might have passed of a sword in the past. Cater just barely avoided being bisected. "When they said Lorican, I thought they meant like that rock collector guy in Iscah."

By sheer weight class, Eight was helplessly outmatched in this situation. Not to mention the thing felt like punching a rock wall. Pressure points would be his best bet. Unfortunately, most of those were covered by armor, and Loricans were renowned for forging stuff harder than Militesi MAs. He would have to make full use of its exposed mouth then.

Eight grimaced and threw a kick into the Lorican's teeth. It reeled back, allowing Cater a clear shot at the unarmored section of its head. Gargling, the creature fell backward clawing at its face.

Stepping over the body that he didn't remember seeing on his first entry to the room, Eight evaluated the live occupants of the room. Both head and shoulders taller than normal human beings, hunched under the weight of crude, steel weaponry. They had once been Loricans. Now, Eight had to wonder how long they had been wandering dead on their feet. Their very existence emanated pain.

 _Please forgive me_ , Eight grimaced and set his feet in a solid fighting stance. _Endure it for just a little longer. Don't give up just yet_.

The first one broke out of its shamble and went into a full on charge, dragging its weapon behind it. Eight bumped his fists together and glared at where its eyes should have been. _Who did this to you?_

These creatures hadn't always been like this. Eight had seen other Loricans who hadn't been in their homeland at the time of the bombing. Though the rest of Orience regarded them as primitive and archaic, they weren't monsters. They were a straightforward and honest people, valuing the strength of a simple life, bound to the earth.

Now they were simpler still, but twisted into a lie of their former humanity.

Eight jumped the long-wound sword swing with ease and flipped into a twisting kick across his opponent's jaw. There was a sickening crack, but the ex-Lorican stayed on its feet and threw another swing. Reacting instantly, Eight ducked beneath the blow and rose for an uppercut as a sorrowful melody seeped into the room.

The ex-Lorican shrieked in pain as its arms went slack. The cry was cut short into a wheeze by a shot from Cater. Still, Eight remembered the anguished howl; The target wasn't dead yet.

That left just one more.

" _De... Deaaaath!_ " The lone remaining creature roared, pounding at its chest. " _Die...Die! DIE!_ "

"Sorry, buddy," There was a grim click as Cater performed a reload. "Orders say otherwise."

The ex-Lorican snarled and, in an unprecedented show of intelligence, hacked one of the various chains strung around the room. A series of rumbling clinks resounded throughout the chamber. Behind Eight, Deuce's melody ended with an abrupt squeak.

"Deuce! Hold it right th—!"

Cater's objection met a shockwave flying straight from the monster's sword and the gun-mage subsequently went flying into the nearest wall.

" _Death is... all left to us_ ," the ex-Lorican grated through clenched teeth. " _Now...DIE!"_

The shockwave missed Eight by a few feet. His opponent grunted in surprise as the diminutive martial artist closed the remaining distance and smashed the fingers holding the sword. Another set of kicks and the weapon was sent spinning to the ground.

The ex-Lorican growled and threw a punch that would've probably crushed Eight's skull in the case of a connection. Instead, it went over Eight's shoulder. Taking advantage of the proximity, the boy hooked behind the creature's leg with one foot and inverted its knee with a deft kick from the other.

Unfortunately, that didn't give Eight quite as much lift as he would've hoped.

The ex-Lorican tumbled forward, and Eight soon found himself between rock and a five-hundred pound armored body. Quickly bunching his legs between himself and his impending doom, Eight could smell the putrid breath seething from his opponent's mouth. This wasn't good... his body was quickly pressing towards its limits as the ex-Lorican attempted to turn him into a human pancake. Heaving a groan, the monster lifted a fist and struck for his face. Faced with the split second before the blow actually landed, Eight turned the back of his gauntlet towards the broken claw and braced it with his free hand.

Most people would assume their body couldn't handle something like that. Eight didn't think it would work either, but he had to try.

The strike still felt like megaton hammer, but it did skid off the temporary barrier and deliver its true payload off course.

" _Die!_ " The creature hefted its other hand for a follow up blow.

Eight didn't give it the chance, twisting to deliver an elbow to its face. The shift in weight relieved enough pressure for him to push off the chestplate and get out of the way.

Strangely, he felt alive from the clash. A slight head turn revealed his opponent was still breathing in haggard intervals. Were they both down for the count? That wouldn't be good. Whoever got up first would decide the match. If it was Eight, the verdict would be life, the ex-Lorican, death.

And yet, Eight could barely twitch his fingers right now. So close to death with nothing but his own broken body to refute the outcome. Maybe he deserved to die... maybe his defiance of the cycle was the crime befitting this punishment.

The downed monster growled and reached out to curl its fingers around his leg. Eight again bid his body to get up.

Then, from across the room. "I said..."

Something whistled through the air and cracked into the ex-Lorican's seething mouth.

"Hold it... right there!"

Stumbling to her feet, Cater lowered her smoking magicite pistol and sunk to her knees again.

And yet, in broken, uneven intervals, the creature continued to breath. Alive.

Eight felt a laugh shake through his bruised ribs. Either Cater had forgotten what kind of ammo she had loaded, or she had just intentionally left their foe alive.

Either way, life had been chosen.

Closing his eyes, the young martial artist let himself bask in the moment of triumph on the battlefield. For the first time in a very long while, death hadn't won.

}-{

When Deuce recovered, she brought the party back to full strength. Through the use of teleport magic, the team made it safely back to the waiting drop ship with their precious cargo and were soon headed back to Akademia.

Eight took the journey resting in the cargo hold, watching over the sleeping ex-Loricans while he nursed his injuries.

"They almost had you, y'know," Cater intoned pointedly, coming up beside him. "If I hadn't gotten up when I did..."

"Thank you, Cater," He answered, giving her a weary, though sincere, smile. "I appreciate it."

"You better," the gun-mage muttered, taking the moment to look over their hard-won bounty. "I can't have you dying on me, you know?"

Eight gave her a knowing look. "...Personal record?"

"Something like that," she sniffed. "Just... I've gotten used to having you around, alright?"

"I see..."

"Shut up, I didn't mean anything else by it, okay?"

Eight refrained from smiling again and simply nodded.

"Now don't do anything stupid like that again. We need you alive for the next mission too."

"Is that so?"

Cater rolled her eyes, a smirk coming to her lips. "Duh, who else'll spout hopeless idealism that almost makes sense? Can't really count on anyone else for that delicate balance. Although..."

He raised his eyebrows and waited for her to continue.

"Well... your conversation skills could use work," she huffed. "You're pretty good out in the field, but you've got to learn how to say more than a generic 'I appreciate it' when someone saves your skin, alright?"

"What were you hoping for?" he returned without guile. "A speech?"

"She was hoping you'd admit it was stupid to try to take them alive," Deuce offered, joining the two as she entered from the upper deck. "Or at least, that's what she was saying upstairs."

"Deuce!" the gun-mage hissed, clenching her hands into fists. "Look! I'm just trying to get you all to be honest: For as amazing as Eight thinks he is, he still needs us to make his stupid no-kill philosophy work."

Eight pursed his lips as the statement processed. "So you're saying I need to trust you with more?"

"Something like that, I guess," Cater replied, scratching irritably at the back of her head. Was she flustered?

"I can live with that," Eight assured her. "After all, what's the point of life if there's no one to share it with?"

"Wha-?" Cater's frown deepened. "Where did that come from?"

"...I'll tell you later."

}-{

When Talik Izon Ib'dar opened his eyes, the first thing he realized was the absence of a headache. The room was bright. Most places were in comparison to Lorica. The wind was cool, almost unbearably soft on his rugged skin. Where was he? The ex-soldier wiped at his eyes and sat up.

"Awake?"

Talik snapped his head towards the speaker, a small human standing against the wall with arms crossed. The Lorican narrowed his eyes; the boy looked familiar.

"I had the Sorcery try to heal your phantoma. It was warped by the Militesi. Can you understand me now?"

Talik grunted. "Who are you?"

The boy slipped a small smile and uncrossed his arms. "Just call me Eight."

"Eight..." Talik echoed, still trying to place where he'd seen this boy. "What funny names you of the southlands carry. ...We _are_ in the southlands, yes?"

"Rubrum, yeah," the boy called Eight replied. "The capital city of Akademia."

"What of Lorica?"

"...What do you remember about Lorica?"

Talik frowned and put a hand to his head. It felt emaciated. "Do you dare need ask about the jewel of Orience? The land of the valiant, the home of the strong, a place where I and..." the Lorican trailed off when he realized he couldn't remember anyone else who had dwelt there. "...What happened to Lorica?"

Almost as if the words had flipped a switch, the headache started to creep back. Talik could see light, then smoke. All of Lorica gone in an instant. Weeks of wandering through the smoldering ruin, eating alive whatever dared to enter. His stomach churned.

"Death... Lorica is dead," Talik murmured, still seeing the devastation before him. "Why... why am I still alive? How did... I was a monster. My mind had gone to rot. Why did you bring me here, young phoenix?"

"Because somebody else let me live," the boy replied. "Being an agent of death to this world doesn't suite me, I'd rather return the favor and let others live when I can."

"Oh?" _Fool_. Talik scowled on the inside. Who was this who thought he could fight against the flow of the world? "Tell me, who allowed you to pardon my sin and keep me in this world?"

"...Would you rather Lorica stay dead?"

"What?"

"You're one of the few survivors of Lorica. Do you want it to die with you? Or is there still something you're supposed to be doing in this world?"

"...You spared me to yet labor on?"

"It's work that only you can do," Eight said simply. "When the time comes, you'll have your rest. Until then, could you do me a favor and keep living?"

Talik grunted at the absurd young phoenix, but looked away. "I... Suppose there is yet something worth doing with this life after all."

}-{

"You know, someday you won't be coming back from this."

"I know."

"And you're still gonna keep fighting with your wimpy fists?"

"Weapons take lives too easily."

"Oh? And what's the point of saving your enemies?"

"...Only those who have walked the lines closest to death know the full value of the lives they spare."

"You know... I don't think I'll ever understand you, Eight."

"That's okay, I don't need you to understand. I just need you to help me."

 **-}End[08]{-**

 _Author's Notes:_

 _Well... that didn't quite go as expected. How do you sum up an amazing, almost transcendent character like Eight without seeming cheesy, over the top, and just plain cliché? Oh... the unfortunate challenges of writing characters you love..._

 _As stated previously, Eight is my absolute favorite character in Type-0. I actually eschew magic attacks in favor of his devastatingly adaptable forms (Wildfie+Quickbolt stance ftw!). In addition to being a really scrappy little fighter who can reign supreme on the battlefield, Eight also has an interesting little philosophy that goes along with him. Whether or not that actually leads to what was described above is highly debatable._

 _Anyway, I'm not really sure what happened to the story, I think I kind of got lost in rambling. Sorry about that. You can go and check out more cohesive stories from_ my _partners-in-crime over at the Twelve Shots of Summer C2 and Forum. In the meantime, why not write your own story for the prompt? After all, I could go on forever when talking Type-0 dream teams._

 _...Seriously though, go check out the forum._

 _Thanks for another week. Sorry about the inexcusable ramblings! Next week sees Nine take the spot light... sort of! Until then, may the readings be good and the summer be sweet. I wish you all the best._

 _Regards,_

 _-CG_


	9. 09-Hard Lessons

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[09]Hard Lessons**

 _-[Nine, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 9: Mercy]_

In a world where experience only lived as long as its teachers, Nine found it was best not to waste time on judgments. When some people got asked about right and wrong or this and that, they'd stop and think about it, and say yes and no, and, failing everything, try to say there was a gray scale in between the opposites.

Nine didn't believe that bull crap for a second.

To Class Zero's lancer, things were never half way. Either you were right or wrong, good or bad, innocent or guilty. There was no stupid middle ground to drudge up technicalities and try to confuse the point. For him, the surest sign something was true was often that it was simple as well.

}-{

"New kids, hey?"

"Yes, Rem Tokimiya and Machina Kunagiri, transferred from Classes Seventh and Second since fourteen-hundred hours yesterday," Trey said from the seat in front of him, not looking up from the text books spread across his desk. "Apparently, it's a response to our performance during Operation Apostle."

"Hold up," Nine commanded, his tone going a few ticks south of annoyed. "You can't fool me, yo!"

"Would you like to peruse the official orders?"

Nine snorted. "As if! There ain't fourteen hundred hours in a day, yo! Thought you of all people would know that, hey! Whoever was filin' orders was on something. This Akademia place is seriously screwed, yo... "

"..."

When Nine saw the official orders, he found the numbers were off by about thirteen-hundred and nintey-two, a much more reasonable estimate. He also found out that the two introduced at the start of yesterday's class were indeed there to stay. Both factors contributed to an afternoon session at the training arena to blow off steam.

For the next few weeks, Nine would wonder how Trey could be so smart and not get how to tell time.

}-{

"Y'know... sometimes it's hard to keep a clear head about all this."

King turned on his stool just far enough to regard the Class Sixth kid on his left with a cool frown. How long had they been there? Scratch that, how long had they been _talking_? Had he started this conversation somehow? Or was he just catching the tail end of it by chance?

"I mean... I love Rubrum as much as anyone," the boy pressed on, tugging at his forest-green cadet scarf. "But doesn't it... I don't know, doesn't it feel kind of off to think that we've killed so many people and we're not even adults yet?"

King tried to think of the last time he'd thought of himself as a child. No good. He shrugged and turned to his right. "Nine?"

"Huhmph," The scarred blond half grunted, half belched and slammed his glass on the counter. "Ain't no point in feelin' sorry, yo. You wanna come out on top, hey? Get it through your head: You live, that's good. They die, and that's good too. They're stinkin' murderers anyway. Killin' those monsters don't count."

King frowned again and wondered if Nine had been keeping up on his Ethics 101 homework. To his left, the Class Sixth boy quietly put down his glass and walked away.

}-{

The way Nine saw it, practicality was the heart of everything. If they didn't talk back, they agreed. If it hurt, it meant try harder.

"One more time!" the towering blond barked, shaking his fist deliriously over his head as he staggered forward. "I gots this, just one more!"

The Militesi Colossus stared back with its iridescent green gaze and lifted a clawed manipulator. The last three times it had sent him sprawling, but the attack left the unit's vital parts wide open. Hence, why Colossus operators usually opted for the missile launcher attachment on the left arm. However, explosives weren't practical at point blank, and the claw arm still packed a nice wallop when it connected about 90% of the time.

Nine was aiming to be that 10% that didn't connect.

Sliding on his knees, the scarred lancer just barely avoided having his head taken off and came out on the other side with a victorious diving strike into the vulnerable core.

"Ha!" Nine grinned and kicked the drooping Colossus as its power systems failed. "Told ya I could do it, yo!"

After the battle, Nine was promptly admitted to the infirmary for multiple concussions and ushered off to Class Seventh for brain damage diagnosis. He was released with a denial of child-hood conditioning, but an affirmation that he was making up for lost time now.

}-{

"I...Can't die..."

Nine was breathing hard, but still up and running. Rather than halting his advance, the declaration sounded more like a challenge. He set his teeth in a feral grin and stalked closer.

"There's... someone... I can remember their face. They're out there, waiting for me."

The wounded Militesi officer tried to squeeze off a shot. He missed by a wide margin.

Nine put one foot on the man's stomach and toppled him backwards, then grunted. "You're the one who messed with us, yo. You wanna take? We'll take it right back."

A minute later, Nine couldn't remember what he'd been doing. Maybe someone had died.

}-{

Sometimes, Nine thought that sounding tough or cool equated to sounding competent.

"Queen, you, Deuce, and Seven will hold the line with Class Third outside Eibon. Nine?"

"Yeah?" Nine, biting off his finger nails in the middle of class, lazily raised his eyebrows at his CO. "What is it, Teach?"

If Kurasame was annoyed by his student's unruly behavior, he didn't show it. That kind of ticked Nine off; that the instructor never reacted to anything. At the same time, it meant Nine didn't get heckled for the small stuff so long as he could deliver results.

"Take Machina and Rem and stall reinforcements along the northern corridor," Kurasame went on. "I want the path free of complications for our advancing Spark Units. Be wary of the local fauna. Are we clear?"

"Huh," Nine grunted, then spat fingernail fragments to the side. "Do ya hafta ask, hey?"

The Ice Reaper stopped his pacing at the front of the class and met Nine's defiant gaze with a stare so cold it could freeze a fire flan.

"In your case: yes, I do."

If Jack or anyone else snickered at that one, Nine didn't hear it over the sound of his ego bruising.

}-{

Machina wasn't overly attached to Class Zero as a whole. He had a healthy respect for their skills, but actual caring had long been truncated and put aside. After all, how could he care about his brother's murderers?

Most of them weren't bad kids; depending on how you defined bad. Cater could be kind of abrasive. Sice was alright if you left her in her own little corner. Assuming you could get Jack to stop stringing jokes like a popcorn chain, he could be pretty helpful.

Nine didn't have much excuse in Machina's eyes. Nine was loud, rude, and lived for the fight. The scars running across the boy's face were proof enough of his reckless lifestyle. Ace may have been the one who asked for Izana to deliver the COMM, but Machina had the sneaking suspicion that Nine was somehow mixed up in the actual death.

Plus... well, it helped to have someone to tack the blame on.

Despite their impressive actions on behalf of the Dominion, Class Zero was held in contempt by most of the top brass. Considering it was an elite unit that answered only to the Arch Sorceress, Machina could understand why the group made them uneasy. If Doctor Al-Rashia ever felt like throwing a coup, all she had to do was throw up a cover story and call on her little darlings to put a few memories to sleep. No one else would ever know the difference.

Thus, when select members of the Consortium came to Machina with the mission of spying on Class Zero, it wasn't a particularly hard sell. He tried to convince himself that threatening to charge Rem with the mission had been what really made him do it, but in the back of his mind he knew he'd already been rearing for the chance.

"Yo, Mach 5, pick up the pace, hey?"

Machina pressed his teeth together under a serene mask and nodded. "Of course."

"Thinking, Machina?" Rem, marching beside him, steepled her fingers and gave him a sidelong look. "You're not usually like this, you aren't. Care to share what's on your mind?"

Anyone else would've gotten a curt "No, thank you." But Rem was different. They'd known each other since as long as either of them could remember. Machina couldn't say how many people he'd called his friends in the past, but Rem was the only one he had left.

Still, he couldn't jeopardize the mission by telling her what was going on. Rem was too kind for her own good, forcing her to choose between her classmates and their friendship would not just be cruel, it would be stupid. So, the answer was obvious.

Forcing a smile, Machina waved a hand at the thick, foggy air permeating the jungle. "Nothing, it's just the climate. How do the Concordian's stand it being so humid all the time?"

"That's why they build their city's on hills, it is. They can see above the fog that way," Rem laughed. "Don't worry us like that, Machina. I actually thought something was wrong for a second there, I did."

Machina joined in the laugh briefly. Enough to show solidarity, but not long enough to be palpably artificial. Briefly, he wondered how he would go about apologizing later. Rem wouldn't remember Class Zero by the time they were gone. Nobody so much as batted an eyelash at the vacant 10 slot in the roster, what were a few more names missing?

}-{

The Warrior unit came out of nowhere. While Nine had been boasting earlier that the Militesi would need a sneak attack to even stand a chance against him, that didn't stop him from cursing up a storm when they followed his advice.

How a MA unit had outflanked them was mystery, but Nine was more concerned with writing a good ending to the story than puzzling out how he got there.

"Rem! Be careful!"

Oh, right, and babysitting the rookies. Yeah, there was that too.

Leaping over a charging Warrior, Nine took advantage of the open cockpit design and skewered the pilot. The Magitek Armor suit promptly went slack and stumbled to a halt before it could reach the newbies.

Or, that one anyway. There were still four more closing formation on the duo.

Plucking his lance from the downed armor, Nine pointed his hand at the nearest Warrior's fuel tank and let a burst of fire fly. The tank hissed and whined before letting out a satisfactory bang.

"REM!"

Nine gave Machina an annoyed snort. Why was it always Rem with this kid? Rem this, Rem that. It wasn't like Rem was making life any easier.

"Hey, Machhead," Nine shouted, hefting his lance back as he readied for a throw. "Duck!"

The shot just barely missed the other boy's back as it hurled into another advancing Warrior. The remaining two took the cue to descend on Machina and Rem. Nine figured the pilots were cowards to pick off the weakest of the pack when the real threat was made so obvious. What were they even doing? Had Rem fainted? _Tch... typical_.

Summoning his lance back to his hand, Nine leapt into the air to close the difference and give himself the over head advantage. Machina was still fawning over Rem like a kid cradling a broken toy. The Warriors were approaching from opposite directions, so Nine would only be able to introduce one to his spear before the other finished the job. That didn't matter, seeing as his polearm was only one of the weapons in his arsenal.

Nine soared over the first unit, raining fire into its cockpit before flipping and bracing for an airborne thrust into the last opponent. Perhaps sensing his doom, the pilot tried to pull sideways at the last moment. Too late though, the lance had already found its mark. Then again, while the maneuver didn't save the soldier, it did send Nine's spear shaft cracking into his ribs.

The Cadet went flying and landed with a thump.

}-{

Tears still in his eyes, Machina held Rem close one last time before putting her down and standing up. When Nine set off the Warrior's fuel tank, he'd also sprayed the area with a fair bit of shrapnel. Machina had dug out what he could, but the situation wasn't looking good for Rem.

In a way, this was exactly the push he needed. While his mission orders were technically to observe weaknesses in his classmates, Commandant Higato had also let slip that elimination of Class Zero wasn't particularly discouraged. In other words, he had full license to avenge himself for Nine's recklessness.

Of course, it wasn't an open and shut case. Doctor Al-Rashia kept the cadets' knowing tags on her person at all times. If Nine didn't return, she would know. On the other hand, Nine's habits of leaping before he looked could possibly be used to explain away why his body hadn't been recovered. Al-Rashia could only remotely revive Class Zero if she had an exact bead on where they were, such as a town. If Nine didn't happen to make it back...

But no, it was still too risky. Besides, if the crime was pinned on Machina, that might preclude Rem receiving Al-Rashia's blessing. The girl was fading fast, revival might be her only chance. He couldn't jeopardize treatment for the sake of revenge.

"Heh... you just gonna... stand there, hey?"

Machina moved closer. Nine was smiling; holding his side, but still smiling. His face was streaked with ash and blood. Maybe it was just the light, but his nose looked to be at a funny angle.

 _That idiot_.

His forearms tensed. He wanted nothing more than to summon his bolt rapiers and run the cocky spearman straight through.

 _Rem's hurt because of you_.

Nine heaved himself to his knees and reset his nose. "Do I gotta do _everything_ myself?" the scarred boy laughed. "Seems like every time we run into trouble, you go cryin' to Rem and I take the heat. Ever think about mannin' up, yo?"

Machina almost opened his mouth to fire back before he thought better of it. What good would it do? Nine was an idiot, plain and simple. An acrobatic and martially skilled idiot, true, but that didn't mean he would understand if Machina took him out here and now.

That was the frustrating thing about revenge, most people didn't get what they were dying for when they forgot their victims. Nine took a step further and just didn't care whether his victims were living or dead.

"Hey... where is Rem anyway?"

Machina paused. He shouldn't have. He should've just gone ahead and done whatever he was about to do. Still... the mere flicker that Nine had a soul was enough to stop Machina in his tracks.

And then the world shook.

Machina reeled on the marshy ground of the isthmus. His mind kicked back into gear and started scanning for threats. What else was the Empire throwing at them now?

Thumping its way out of the fog, a Militesi colossus stopped just long enough to analyze the situation before leveling its missile arm at Nine.

"Damn coward! I'll roll ya for lunch! You ba—!"

Nine wasn't there when the missile connected. Instead, he was rolling to a halt in Rem's direction.

Machina, having thrown the boy to safety, glared over his shoulder and left a single order. "Protect Rem."

"Yeah?" Nine yelled after him. "Then don't go dyin' on me, yo! If you tryin' to fit on your big boy panties now, you better—"

Machina tuned out the rest and took a daring charge towards the magitek menace bearing down on them. He could've let Nine die right there. There would be zero incriminating evidence linking him to the crime and even Arecia Al-Rashia herself would never know. Unfortunately, Machina probably wouldn't have been able to walk away from that one alive. If there were any small fry still lurking about, they would almost certainly target Rem in his absence. Half-dead as Nine was, the boy still counted as a warm body that could point and shoot when it came down to it.

Determined to take him out before he got into point blank territory, there was a muted flare as the colossus fired another missile. Machina immediately countered by bathing the projectile in a spat of lightning, detonating it as it left the chamber. The ensuing explosion knocked him from his feet, but it also left the colossus with a smoldering stump for its left arm.

Rolling to his feet, Machina summoned his weapons, twin bolt rapiers, and resumed his dash.

Predictably, the colossus raised its right arm shredder and attempted to bring his charge to a crushing conclusion. Machina responded by driving both rapiers up into the arm as it came towards him.

That wasn't a smart move.

While the shredder mechanism did jam, the machinery driving the punch did not. Machina had but an instant to realize just how superior the Militesi motor was to his own arm-strength before he had his rapier hilts jammed into his abdomen.

Machina choked as internal bleeding forced liquid up his throat. He felt his breath go short, and no matter how many gasps he made he couldn't fill his lungs. Gritting his teeth, he grasped the metal limb pressing down on him and let loose an electrical storm.

Unsurprisingly, everything then went dark.

}-{

Nine, for whatever else he was, was not a traitor. It took him a solid thirty minutes, but after the smoke settled, he did retrieve both Machina and Rem and take them back to Mother.

Rem recovered first. She gave Nine a doubly affirmed thank you and then went about personally tending to Machina.

 _Hmph, jerk deserved it_. Nine crossed his arms, but stayed there until Machina opened his eyes. When the dark haired young man did finally come to, Nine grunted his triumph and left the room.

The kid was safe, that was what mattered.

}-{

"Hey, Nine?"

Nine, basking in the sun behind the Chocobo Ranch, cracked an eye at the visitor just to make sure it wasn't important before sinking back into repose. "Yeah?"

"Why did you bring me back?"

"Huh," Nine grunted and picked at one of the scars running across his face. "What? You think I'd ever go against Mother's orders? We look out for each other."

"You see Rem and me as part of the group?"

"Hey... don't get me wrong," Nine winced. The sun was still pretty bright even through closed eyelids. "I mean, I still think you're a wimpy cry baby, but I couldn't just leave you two hangin' back there, y'know?"

"Can't say I do. You seem pretty dead set on your own way."

The lancer heaved a sigh, but still remained lying on the grass. "Listen... Maches, I do what Mother says. If she says you're valuable, I ain't gonna off ya just cause I don't like ya."

"...Good to know."

Maybe he was wrong, but Nine could've swear he heard someone unsummon their weapon.

 _What's anyone doin' practicing around here?_

Shrugging off the frown, Nine settled back into his nap and kept sleeping.

}-{

"Mr. Kunagiri," Commandant Higato saluted and gave a smug grin. "I pray conditions were favorable for you?"

"...No witnesses," Machina confirmed. How Higato had orchestrated it that way was impressive in and of itself. Usually the Chocobo Ranch had at least some staff around. Whatever the Commandant had ordered, it had left the area virtually deserted for the occasion. "The knowing tag?"

"I'll have you know this wasn't easy to obtain," Higato muttered, producing the clip of metal marked with Nine's name. "That woman... it's as if she's always watching."

"Good..." Machina deftly plucked the tag from the older man's hand and placed it in his own pocket. "I'll be on my way then."

Privately, Machina wondered what Higato would do when he realized there could be no witnesses to a crime that never occurred anyways.

 _Sorry, sir, I had a favor to return_.

 **-}End[09]{-**

 _Author's Notes:_

 _So... this wasn't quite what I had in mind when I started. But turning the tables and having Machina being the one to learn a lesson and exhibit mercy, particularly with a character as easy to snipe at as Nine, was a nice literary exercise anyway. Plus... I couldn't come up with anything that flowed well for Nine to go through character transformation. Sometimes it's better to just reveal than be dead set on transforming, you know?_

 _Nine is really the brash one of the group in Class Zero. Even more so than Cater, he's a bumbling ball of brawn, bad comebacks, and not much else. Despite that, he's actually very good at what he does and is one of the more precise melee attackers with the added bonus of reach. Therefore, what he lacks in manners, he makes up for with earnest performance on the battlefield._

 _As for Machina and Rem... well, it's easy to write them in a negative light when I didn't care for them in the original, but I hope my bias didn't carry over too much. Machina is ruled by fear and Rem is... well, she's what you'd call special in the less-than-positive sense. Her half-hearted efforts to mimic Kenshin Himura's self-affirming speech style did little to endear her and her overly submissive, liability bound existence to me. If you are a fan of either Machina or Rem, here is your chance to review/PM and extol their virtues to me. Or flame, you could always do that too._

 _Anyway, I tried to end on a note of grudging respect between Machina and Nine here. Despite Nine's condescending tone, I'd like to believe he's not going to underestimate Machina so much in the future._

 _Lastly, the Commandant is so openly antagonistic towards Class Zero that I think he might actually try to pull a stunt like this. He'd be thorough in covering his tracks, of course, but his hatred for Mother runs so deep that he might be willing to take a stab at her operation from within. After all, when the memories disappear upon death, who would know?_

 _Thank you for reading this far. Additional thank yous go out to_ _ **Aviantei**_ _and_ _ **Vampuric Spider**_ _for their faithful reviews and favorites. Thanks for keeping me on track with this project. Also, thanks to_ _ **Lightnight546**_ _for favoriting and_ _ **Hobo From Across The Street, crystalnyan,**_ _and_ _ **Professional Tsundere**_ _for following along. Your support means a lot to me._

 _Only three more weeks to go. May this last quarter prove the best!_

 _See you next week,_

 _-CG_


	10. 10-Jokes of Fate

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[10]Jokes of Fate**

 _ **-[Jack, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 10: Music Machina]**_

When you really looked at the world, everything clicked together in one big pointed remark. To Jack, that remark was a joke.

"We'll have to split up," Queen decided, adjusting her glasses again as her eyes flicked between the forest paths. They'd been circling through the forest for the last ten minutes or so and, as much as Jack enjoyed the damp slog of Concordian foliage, they needed to wrap things up sooner rather than later. If the Diepvern escaped it would only spell more trouble further down the road. "King, try to get topside and relay what you can about the routes. Jack?"

Jack, Class Zero's number eleven, smiled benignly back. "Give him a boost?"

King didn't laugh. On principle, King didn't react to a whole lot anyway. Jack assured himself the older boy was chuckling on the inside though. Everyone had a funny bone somewhere.

Queen's even stare, on the other hand, left no room for doubt that the girl wasn't in a comedic mood.

"Yeeaaah... okay. Guess I'll run the circuit again then," Jack offered, pushing off the tree he was resting against. Turning his attention to the various twists of the Roshanan forest, the boy put his hand on his hips and tilted his head. "Let's see... which ones have we tried, again?"

"Take that one," Queen said, indicating a narrow, vaguely defined route that seemed to be on poor negotiating terms with the surrounding undergrowth. The dark-haired swordswoman was already heading down her own chosen path. "Don't turn back unless it closes up further down."

Jack gave her an open chuckle where most would give an incredulous look. "This one?"

"Will that be a problem, Jack?"

"No, Ma'am!" The katana-wielding cadet's smile didn't drop. He'd had at least five jokes about rooting out the right route up his sleeve, but he graciously refrained from using them; timing was everything. He did a lazy salute and wink that Queen probably wouldn't care for if she'd been looking. "Well, I'm off!"

}-{

Making a good joke didn't happen all at once. In fact, the best ones were usually the ones happening right under your nose up until the punchline dropped.

Still, some jokes were built on broken consistency: taking one meaning and tying it together with another in a way that only human abstract reasoning could manage. That or whatever cosmic fabric ruled the world, Jack could admit that had a pretty good abstract sense too.

It didn't take long to lose himself in the foggy forest corridors again. Of course, on the upside, it didn't look familiar yet, so there was always the chance that he was making progress. Jack preferred to treat life like that: that there was always the chance for an upbeat for every down beat. Fate had hidden jokes all throughout life, most people just weren't looking for them.

That's why fate gave them Jack.

"Coulda sworn this place was smaller on the outside," Jack marveled, still sauntering through wooded hallways. "Although... I guess _everything_ looks smaller from an airship, huh?"

Silence.

"Man... tough crowd tonight, huh? And here I thought all the humidity would soften you up."

More silence. Not that he expected thunderous applause and laughter, he was only practicing to keep his wit sharp. Most people didn't appreciate the kind of exercise it took to keep a well rounded sense of humor in shape. Rhymes and pun-humor were a good start, but there was so much more to it than that.

"Not that I'm surprised. Stuff in Concordia probably tends to drag-on, huh?"

Okay, maybe that last one was kind of a stretch. But Concordians liked word play, right? It wouldn't work for a Lorican. Of course, Loricans were probably more into irony and slapstick. The land of the Black Tortoise hadn't exactly been known for its pursuits of high culture.

"Anyway, how 'bout another?" He was only getting warmed up, and the Diepvern didn't seem any closer. Might as well keep himself entertained. "So a jumbo sized Zabione squeezes his way into a bar, see's Marshall Aulstyne, and goes nuts. Aulstyne asks, 'What's this monster doing here? Dispose of it immediately!'. 'Monster?' the Zabione answers, looking a little hurt. 'But Sir, I'm your biggest fla—'"

"My, this one talks a lot, he does."

Jack's hand was on his katana hilt before his mind even registered a sense of direction. The voice was behind him. It was cool, smooth, controlled... and slightly amused. He decided not to pull a fatal sheath draw just yet.

The speaker, a girl in a burgundy-ish coat, stood a little shorter than Jack. The upper half of her face was obscured by the coat's hood, but the robe itself was more than enough proof of her identity; Unless, of course, someone outside of Class Zero had adopted Agito Cloaks.

Or stolen them. Jack hadn't been able to find his since the start of the war.

"Heeeey! Didn't see you there!" Jack greeted his enigmatic classmate with a mock bow. "And what might you be doing in the big bad forest? Finished with work early? Or checking to see what's taking so long?"

"I'm here because I was meant to be here," the cloaked girl replied simple. "Or, more specifically, I am here to watch you."

Jack felt a light blush and amplified it for effect. "Aww, for me? Well aren't you a thoughtful stalking fangirl! I didn't know I had those..."

"Stalking fangirl?" the mystery member tilted her head. Her tone was somewhere between deadpan and innocently curious. Jack suppressed a frown. If there was anything worse than an audience that hated your jokes, it was one that politely missed them altogether. "Perhaps 'Faithful Chronicler' would be a better title."

"Oh, so you're writing my autobiography for me?" Jack asserted, pounding a fist down into his open hand as if to cement the point. "Good, It's due by the end of the month. Wanna show me what you've got after the mission?"

"Faithful Chronicler of Class Zero, to be most accurate," the girl refined her definition once more over steepled fingers. "Tiz, the Ephemeral Number Ten. Satellite member of Class Zero."

"Aaaactually," Jack rubbed at the back of his head and gave an apologetic smile, "It's Jack, number eleven, _full time_ member of Class Zero. But that's okay! We're missing that slot, so people usually think I'm number ten anyway."

He didn't even try to start guessing at whatever Ephemeral was supposed to mean. Hopefully she hadn't meant effeminate; That might actually do a blow to his pride.

"I was referring to myself," the girl corrected him, placing an open hand on her collarbone. "Introductions are usually in order for first meetings. Of course, I could only call this a 'first' from your perspective. Usually we don't meet, but it's not like it never happens at all."

"Ooookay, hold it," Jack laughed. This girl (Tiz, was it?) apparently had a thing for being cryptic. Queen would definitely hate her. "So we've met before? You're not a ghost or something, are you? 'Cuz I don't remember you at all."

"Much the opposite, I'm afraid," Tiz returned, clasping her hands behind her back as she took a few steps closer. "Last cycle marked the thirty-nine-thousandth time we watched you and the rest of our Class perish at the end of the war. My... isn't it an odd feeling to meet someone you've already met?"

Checkmate. "Oh, You remember us dying?" Well, that left only a handful of possibilities. Either she was totally crazy or she somehow fell outside the Crystal's influence. "Well, that's—"

"Second option, falling outside the Crystal's influence," Tiz interrupted calmly.

Jack raised his eyebrows.

"We've been through this before, Jack, _hundreds_ of times. We've been watching you for thousands of cycles trying to discern which member of Class Zero has the potential to become Agito."

"Hmm," Jack put his hands at his hips and politely smiled. "Any luck yet?"

"Not any total success, no," Tiz patiently replied. Still, Jack was beginning to sense the hollowness of a very long existence in her voice. "Little tweaks here and there, but fate is a grand mechanism with many cogs. Orchestrating the desired outcome by rote, even with 'predictable' players, is more challenging than you would think."

"Predictable, huh?" Jack rubbed a finger under his nose and took a few steps forward. Entertaining as this was, he _did_ have a mission to finish. "Alright... so which way to the Diepvern?"

"You're headed in the right direction," Tiz affirmed. "This is actually a short-cut. I'm almost surprised you found it this time."

"Call it my impeccable charming of Lady Luck," Jack shrugged and flipped a hand through his hair. Tiz started to follow him as he continued on his way. "I mean... I knew I was good, but I've got to be fantastic to get that sort of fortune, am I right?"

"You don't believe in luck."

Jack paused. Should he have seen that one coming? It wasn't like he tried to go around saying that he did or didn't, but her decisive tone was only matched by his covertly decisive attitude on the subject. Luck didn't give you the perfect finishing blow, discipline did. When Jack struck with his katana, he didn't flail around and hope for a hit, he waited for the perfect opening before striking with razor honed reflexes. Most people, certainly the majority of his classmates, didn't suspect that side of him on their first meeting. Good jokes weren't a random string of coincidences, they were funny because they were relevant.

And yet... to have someone else recognize that was like having an opponent break through his carefully observing guard before he realized the chance to strike. In a word, it was unnerving.

"Apologies, Jack. Would you rather not admit it?"

"No, it's not that,"Jack put on a smile again. She'd gotten in a rare hit, but that could just be an outlier. Even if it was skill, he was game to give it another shot. "Just... not many people would catch that. You're sharp!"

"I didn't catch it the first dozen times, if that makes you feel any better."

Ah, right. She was supposedly from an alternate timeline or something. Of course, if she was, that begged the question as to what she was up to here. Not to mention why the timeline would repeat in the first place.

"I guess I'll take that as a compliment," the boy allowed. He was still sizing up his opponent in this match of wits. She was playing her cards well, put it was more the fact that she could see through bluffs that was throwing his strategy off. Of course, that was all thanks to previous experience. If he could throw off the cycle... "But really, you're giving me too much credit. If I could think my way through things that well—"

"—Then why is Queen in charge of the mission?" Tiz finished for him. "Good question. It actually wasn't until a few cycles back that she and King started to show up here. Before then it was Ace and Eight. Nine was consistently rejected for being too hot headed, given the circumstances of the puzzle. Cinque got good results, but she was chosen on a fluke the one time you weren't available. She knows how to think outside the box, that one..."

"So I was the constant then?" Jack filled in. Funny, today hadn't all that pre-destined when he'd gotten up in the morning. Maybe he'd forgotten to check his calendar for notes.

"Except for that one time."

"Well, nobody's perfect!" the boy laughed. Behind the grin, he was turning the insinuations on their head to see if he could get a better angle. "...Just curious, but how did we compare?"

"Like I said, Cinque performed well," Tiz repeated evenly. "However, her accomplishments weren't replicable. She has a strong reliance on self-affirmed selection. While she chose correctly when navigating this particular puzzle, that was more coincidence than correlation. She lacks the underlying strength of one worthy to become Agito."

"...And me?" Maybe it was a thinly veiled attempt to fish for compliments, but Tiz seemed up front enough to oblige anyway.

"En lieu of Cinque's confidence, you are an essential component to this trial. You are both very attentive, but to different details. Your perceptions, in this case, miss certain subtleties Cinque found fairly quickly, but you put what you do find to more meticulous use."

"Gee... you're sure you're not mixing me up with Trey?"

"Trey is too meticulous. He lives in a world of books and data, more appreciative of their static, predictable nature than human nuances. You, on the other hand, are open to the world; listening and waiting for a moment you have decided will arrive. There is no alternative for you: the game must be played whatever the rules that are thrown in the air."

Well... it was nice to see _someone_ appreciate the qualities that didn't show up on standardized tests. Still, he couldn't allow himself to be buttered up. Not yet. He needed to pretend to hold out just a little longer, and only under the pretense that he actually was falling for it anyway.

Baiting opponents was never a clean cut business to begin with...

He gave his best heroic grin and asked, "So you think I'm the one destined to be Agito?"

Tiz returned a wane smile. "It's possible."

"Hmph, thought so." Jack's smug grunt wasn't quite up to snuff today, but he refrained from a telling wince at the performance. Most cadets probably would've interpreted Tiz's cryptic answer as a tease, Jack took it as a different signal: the past cycles hadn't worked out so well for him.

That was slightly disconcerting in its own right.

On the upside, Tiz _had_ alluded to variance within the cycle when she'd said Cinque did this mission instead of him once, so it wasn't all set in stone just yet.

"Don't get the wrong idea," the cloaked girl cautioned. Her tone didn't drift from its serene, unhurried rhythm, but Jack could sense these things. "'It's possible' does not mean 'it will happen'."

"Heh... don't get up in a tizzy about it, I understand" Jack assured her smoothly. Privately, he wondered if the pun on her name bothered her. She'd laid enough of her cards on the table that he could figure a out most of the premise. Now the trick was figuring out the big punchline before they got there. Luckily, Jack was a natural at stalling for time. Starting off with a bang, he decided to cut straight to the heart of the matter. "You've been doing this cycle over and over again _because_ the right possibility hasn't always been happening, right?"

"Right," Tiz answered without hesitation. The girl then crossed her arms and tilted her head, as if inviting him to go on. "And?"

"You always start with all the same pieces with all the same potential, like a chess board, or a machine straight out of the box. But with different inputs, even the presets of that machine can reach different outcomes. Like, how all the notes in a scale already exist before they can be turned into a melody," He would have to thank Trey for that analogy later. Who knew it would pay off to pay attention during the blond windbag's gratuitous lectures? Continuing on in a tone that mimicked the archer's, Jack felt his smile growing. He caught the expression before it became too noticeable. "So, you've been tweaking the variables, leaving certain things constant over the course of many cycles, trying to isolate the the conditions and person destined to create Agito. This mission is probably just one in a whole bunch of important points on the same timeline."

"Very good. And?"

"And..." Jack held out the conjunction, hand frozen pointing to the sky in scholarly confidence. He'd had a train of thought, but something about the way Tiz took all this in stride while prodding him along made him lose it. He was gaining ground, but he didn't have the upper hand yet. Was retreat the better option? No, he was too committed now. What could he possibly do that he hadn't done before? How could he break his perfectly predictable rhythm? Too bad he wasn't Cinque, that girl was anything but predictable.

"My... and here I thought you had it."

"Heeeey now," a mock pained expression was in order. He couldn't take actual offense, but giving a reaction bought him time. "The joke's not up yet. That would be kind of anticlimactic, don'tcha think?"

"You're right, the hero often _does_ run into trouble before the climax. I suppose I can't count you out just yet."

Hero. She'd alluded to him being a possible Agito earlier. Was this it? Did she want him to break the facade and further assert the claim? Maybe she was just testing his response to the notion. He'd go with that for now.

"Yeesh, 'Hero's kind of a strong word, wouldn't ya say?"

"You had a different reason for joining Class Zero?"

"Of course! Same as everyone else," Jack threw a cheeky mischievous look over his shoulder. "Mother said so."

"... I suppose that's it then."

Ah, there is was: A flash of insight. Tiz wasn't satisfied with that simple of an answer. She gave all the right tells, but he was no closer to figuring out what she really meant.

Well, two could play at that game.

"I don't suppose you could just come out and tell me what I need to do differently," Jack suggested casually. How much longer did this forest last? The path hadn't taken a turn for the last couple hundred feet or so. "Or is the easy way no fun?"

"Easy way? You're one to talk."

The accusation, surprisingly not spoken by Tiz, was phrased in an abruptly good-humored sort of way. Jack glanced backwards to catch sight of another Agito Cloaked figure, this one almost a good head taller and masculine in frame. Taking it in stride, Jack grinned and offered a wave. "Hey! Number Fourteen then? Or are you the legendary Number Zero?"

"Irrelevant, either way," the young man answered brusquely, but entirely without venom. "I was only dropping by to retrieve Tiz."

"So there's been a development then?" Tiz asked her apparent partner. "Is it worth an intervention?"

"Perhaps," the newest arrival of the group didn't seem given to a committal either way. "You're usually the better one at observations though. I can't do your job on my own, you know."

"On your own?" Jack echoed, turning to walk backwards so he could continue facing the conversation. "So wherever you were just now didn't count?"

"Not in the long run," the other young man affirmed, "Two pieces pulled apart are still two pieces of one whole; wouldn't you say?"

"...!"

"What's the matter? I say something funny?"

Of course! Jack wasn't the over all hero, just like how this one mission wasn't the war! Tiz was chronicling Class Zero, who were all connected to Agito, even though only one Agito had ever been prophesized. Jack didn't have to be Agito, but he was still crucial to whoever actually rose into the role.

"And here I thought you were going to throw the weight of the world on my shoulders!" Jack laughed, clapping his hands. "Well, that changes everything!"

"You've figured it out then." It didn't sound like a question the way Tiz phrased it. "Good, I suppose I should be going. It wouldn't be nice to keep Joker waiting after he gave you such a nice hint."

"What? Off to fix another part of the timeline?"

"Something like that," the man, Joker offered. "Even machines can use some oiling sometimes, right?"

 _You had the pieces all along, all it took was the right push_.

Jack smiled back and nodded. "Yeeeah, okay... but your timing needs work."

"I'd say we did alright," Tiz said calmly. "Good luck, Jack."

The roar of a dragon pulled his attention in the opposite direction.

"Whoa... when did that clearing get there?"

And just like that, Jack had reached his target.

}-{

"Do you really think it's right to interfere like this?"

Tiz gave Lean Joker a small genuine smile. "I can only do so much. Is there any harm in fighting the roles fate seems set on assigning us?"

"Fate can be ill-humored, Tiz."

"Yes, but I'd like to think that if we keep at this long enough, we may yet have the last laugh."

"...Maybe he's rubbing off on you."

"Heroes have that effect. Suffice to say, though the machine marches on, every symphony has an end."

"And you think we can still make it a good one?"

"We have the pieces Lean, all we need is the right punchline."

 **-}End[10]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _Well, this probably isn't what you expected from something about Class Zero's resident goof-ball, but after observing the guy's playstyle, I can't help but think that it's all an act. Cinque is sloppy, no question about it, but Jack's the sort of guy who can wait until he's practically being hit before he has to execute his move. He can improvise. That first strike doesn't need windup, and so long as he can get his footing again after that, there's no stopping him. Just like his indomitably sunny personality, Jack has the ability to overcome overwhelming odds given the proper timing._

 _That said, having Jack be the one to cross paths with Joker and Tiz over the course of this anthology was a decision made early on. He's willing enough to treat it like a game that he won't compromise their mission while still giving a fair amount of thoughtfulness to a discreet nudge. Admittedly, this sort of nudge probably was pushing the bounds, but I feel like Tiz and Joker, as part of the search for Agito, would have a vested interest in making certain the cycle keeps improving._

 _Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this one. Only two weeks left to go! Here's hoping we don't go all anticlimactic on you._

 _Regards,_

 _-CG_


	11. 11-The Private Life of Queen

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[11]The Private Life of Queen**

 _-[Queen, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 11: Flower Blooming in the Slums]_

"Why do we leave flowers?"

Sice posed the question in a grumble. Seven would have probably tried to unwind the various sentiments layering the thought. Queen just gave the facts.

"Flowers are symbolic," the explanation began. Queen's expression was always composed, but in her mind she was running through her mental library compiling a crunch-notes lecture for her classmate. "They represent the cycle of life: growing from the tiniest seed, blooming to share life with others, and eventually dying when the season comes. And yet, new flowers will grow from the pollen that old flower gave to the world, even if only in a season the old flower will never see. This is our homage to those we have forgotten, and our hope that we too can leave something for those who will follow when we die."

"Yeah?" The poetics of the tradition were apparently lost on the scythe bearer for now. Perhaps she would accept it later, but her tone made it clear she was more interested in self-justification at the moment. "And how are we supposed to know who deserves flowers? What about those guys that didn't give anything to the next generation?"

"'Death, the great equalizer, cares not for the judgment of the living. Let know that your prestige will belong just the same to the least of your enemies as it did to your heroes.'"

"Akashic Record?" Sice asked, her visible eyebrow carrying a slightly contemptuous arch.

"Just another excerpt from the crystarium," Queen corrected. Although the prophetic tome of the Akashic Record held some of her favorite verses, it was far from the only book in her knowledge base. "The author is, fittingly enough, unidentified."

"Huh... wonder where he stood in the swing of things."

"The official opinion is divided. Considering he is also quoted as saying 'weakness abates wistfulness', we cannot be sure if it was a collection of self-contrary musings written for amusement or ancient paradoxes recorded for reflection."

Sice scowled. Queen privately acknowledged a touch of sympathy. She could completely understand where Sice was coming from, but she refused to let uncertainty induce apathy. In the dark clouds of war, people were just as likely to lose sight of their reasons for fighting as they were their squadmates. If one could not rely on memories, they had to rely on routine.

"So who's this guy we're bringing flowers for anyway?" Sice muttered, scratching just beneath the silver splay of her high-ponytail as she looked away.

"Kurasame Susaya," Queen recited. The name didn't stir anything inside her, but it was what had been on the report. "Our former commanding officer and teacher. He died back at the second battle of Meroe."

"Big Bridge? Then why are we the ones stuck with bringing flowers? Cater, Nine, and Jack were the ones assigned to that mission."

"I'm bringing flowers to pay my respects to someone who spent part of their life trying to give us an edge in this war. You're bringing them because I asked you to come."

"Right, thanks for reminding me."

Sice still sounded less than thrilled, but the excuse was good enough to let her drop it. Queen didn't care to bring up that Sice had seemed to have a liking for the late commander, or that this was Queen's way of giving them all closure. It was easier if it was all pinned on Queen's sense of duty rather than memories that only existed in her journal.

Even if she seemed selfish for it, Queen was determined to carry on as if her memories had never been lost in the first place.

}-{

For as long as she could remember, Queen had been hearing jokes about her and King behind her back. Neither of them paid it much mind. They were professionals, whatever anyone else felt about well-executed team work and a coincidence in naming scheme didn't matter.

Besides, when all was said and done, neither of them really cared for complicating things with a relationship in the middle of a war.

}-{

When Class-Zero was formally inducted into Akademia (and perhaps even a little before then) Queen had been christened class president by the majority of her classmates. To be fair, Jack was the first one to say it, but it had quickly been picked up by Cinque, Nine, Cater, Sice, Eight, and so forth. In fact, Ace, Trey, and King were probably the only ones that didn't see it that way.

For her part, Queen didn't care who was leader, but someone needed to step up and hold everyone together. Even if it meant dealing with ridiculous unofficial titles, if it meant she could perform to her fullest and help her classmates, she would do it.

And, as Jack was quick to point out, even if an official election had never been held, she'd still gotten the position by popular vote.

Obviously, Jack had no future in administrative policy.

}-{

"Bring it, yo!" Nine bellowed, cradling his spear in one arm and flicking his fingers inward. "I ain't done yet!"

Two seconds later and he was on his back again.

It was a good thing this sparring session was private. It would only add to Nine's fury for others to witness his repeated defeat. Privately, Queen wondered if it made any difference that she was a girl. Nine tended to think in primitive terms, often favoring his male bravado whenever given the chance. Other cadets with a similar disposition had given Queen the impression that her prowess created an inferiority complex in less established egos.

Still, he was the one who had asked her to train with him. On some level, that meant he respected her as a warrior. Nine cared about bragging rights, but he was also smart enough to realize beating an unworthy opponent wasn't anything to brag about.

"Use your head," Queen commanded, pointing her broadsword at the boy. "Don't just act, read your opponent and react accordingly."

Nine, who had been ignoring the approach for the past eight rounds, looked aside and dragged himself to his feet. "Hmph." He had a thick skull, Queen found that his learning style required repetition and firm reinforcement. Both were things she could provide.

For her part, the session was only a chance to make her classmate that much more effective on the battlefield.

}-{

"Any questions?"

Study hall. As class president, it was Queen's duty to preside. Ace was no good with explanations and the rowdier members of the class hardly respected Moglin, so it fell to Queen to enforce order in the absence of a true teacher. Despite her lack of credentialing, the young woman was actually rather suited to the role.

When nobody answered, she began down what she called her comprehension list.

Her eyes flicked to Trey. He was engrossed in his studies, but not enough to prevent a cheeky eyebrow raise as he caught her look. Trey was the one member she could count on to never need help; If he was lost, nobody was safe.

Ace was next, followed by Rem Tokimiya. Seven, despite her scattered interests and progressive work load, fell next in line. They all seemed fine so far.

Technically Sice and Deuce tied for the next slot, but Sice had finished her work already and was indulging in a nap. Deuce, sitting up ever so slightly straighter as Queen's eyes came to rest on her, fumbled into refocusing and tried to give an innocent smile.

Even in body language, Deuce was a terrible liar.

Internally, Queen made note of the instance and promised herself she'd come back to it later. Deuce rarely had trouble with understanding material, it was more in the application that she tripped up. The world, to put it in plain terms, did not always operate in the way that it should, and that bothered Deuce.

Unfortunately, that meant it usually fell to Queen to try to get her past her hang ups.

Queen sometimes wondered if Deuce would have still chosen Class Zero given the chance to do everything over again. Granted, none of them had really _chosen_ this life, they were just kind of raised that way. Queen knew that biologically speaking, they had different "real" families out there somewhere; fathers, mothers, maybe even blood siblings that shared their DNA. Most of Class Zero just didn't think that way though. To them they had been chosen by Mother and that was the end of that. Deuce, being the most tender hearted and more given to reflection and reasoning, was the exception.

Queen rarely went on missions with Deuce, but she kept a close eye on the girl all the same. They shared a classification as support units, tide turners, warriors worth a thousand that could save uncounted memories simply by their presence on the field. And yet, to most outside appearances, the two young women were opposites.

For a specific instance, Deuce didn't lead study hall.

But that was alright. Deuce had her own battles to fight, and Queen could count on her to always pick the right ones. If Deuce made a stand on something, it was often worth standing for.

Queen, in the meantime, picked up the slack and lead where Deuce couldn't.

Moving on, Queen still wondered if Deuce found summoning magic troubling on principle, or if the specific case of Commander Kurasame's death had turned her against the matter.

Whichever one, were Queen given the choice, she would have liked to agree.

}-{

"That's a funny place for a flower," Jack noted.

After his previous string of wisecracks, Queen took a moment to analyze his tone for lurking bait before following his gaze. She wasn't in the mood for cheap "made you look" antics, but she also had a duty to observe and analyze her surroundings. Given that they were moving through the western wastes of what had once been the Meroe border, life signs of any sort would be a miracle in its own right.

Sure enough though, on the crest of one of the earthen ripples torn into the land, a single vermillion bloom had struggled its way out of the dirt and stubbornly watching the sun pass by.

"Indeed," Trey murmured, walking beside Queen. "Helianthemum nummularium if I am not mistaken. A pity that it arrived out of season."

"Umm, Trey? I was talking about the _flower_ , not the chemical-science-residue the Milt's left behind."

"Common rock rose," Queen translated for Jack. "They're a type of sunflower. Rather short lived though. It's a wonder this one sprouted, they usually grow in flocks."

"They are also usually more of an aureolin than auburn in the wild," Trey supplied without prompting. "Perhaps this _is_ a chemical phenomena as you suggest, Jack."

"...Queen?"

"He's talking about the color," Queen told the less educated member of the group. "Aureolin is a shade of yellow while auburn classifies as a subset of red."

 _Maybe it's from the bloodshed,_ she added silently. Even if humans forgot the death that tore through their nations, perhaps the land did not.

"The petal hue isn't particularly relevant though," Trey pressed on, wandering towards his own little world of musings as he waved off Jack's recently expanded vocabulary. "What truly confounds me is the blooming itself. Under what conditions could a germinated seed find itself here?"

"I dunno, maybe a soldier brought it," Jack returned, putting his hands behind his head in a carefree stretch. "War may not be all that kind to delicate things like heliantha-whatevers, but the people fighting them still need something to remind them what they're fighting for, right?"

"Alas that this one would be remembered only to expire alone," Trey murmured, running his fingers through his shaggy blond hair. "Without a carrier to exchange pollen with, it will likely bloom in vain."

"Ah, well, I'm glad we could catch it while it was here," the katana wielder stated, his indomitably bright demeanor seeming to reflect the flower's pertinacity. "I dunno who it was blooming for, but let's pretend it was for us, alright?"

Queen, who would have nothing of pretending, simply adjusted her glasses and kept walking.

}-{

In the early mornings, Queen would seize the unclaimed daylight hours and go off on her own to do whatever she needed to get done. Most of the time, that was studying campaign briefs or reviewing class proceedings to see who needed adjustments to be brought up to parity. Today it was training.

The final assault on the Militesi capital city was just around the corner, it would be a pity to have survived the whole war only to wither now.

The predawn halls of Akademia had a quiet hush about them. Crimson tinted lamps bathed the black marble in a soft glow that seemed to hush her steps. Of course, that was absurd, but Queen acknowledged the fallacies of her senses even if she knew better. After all, if she could instinctively make the assumption, then it followed that others could as well.

Walking to the arena wasn't too far from the dorms. A simple slip through the gardens, passing by the fountain of the Vermillion Bird on the way. Queen took a moment to study the monument. _Wings of Fire to lift the Heart_ , the base inscription read. It was the virtue of Suzaku that many cadets whispered to themselves before entering battle. Queen just saw a stone bird.

 _Where is your promise of rebirth?_ She pursed her lips as she trotted on. _What have you done for those that fell in your name?_

It was heresy and she knew it, but the questions needed to be asked. For a country with a phoenix as its coat of arms, Rubrum had seen precious little promise of new life throughout the fires of war.

}-{

Queen could respect Eight. He had a tendency towards tunnel vision, but his heart was always in the right place. Always earnest and respectful, the young martial artist set high personal standards and never asked anyone to walk a path he wouldn't walk himself. Even if he was more on the average side with academics, he would go far on the battlefield, and make sure to bring many through the fire with him.

On the other hand, Queen could understand how such lofty idealism could be seen as stupid. Eight didn't have as many scars as Nine, but holding to his path would almost certainly guarantee it was only a matter of time. Giving himself wholeheartedly to the world was bound to have consequences.

Queen was well assured that would not deter the young man.

"Hey, Queen?"

She gave the ginger-haired pugilist a calm look and continued to sharpen her sword. It was good post-training practice and she wasn't about to slip up now.

"Can I ask you a question?"

Queen nodded her assent and turned her attention back to her blade.

"Do you ever think of yourself? It seems like all you ever do is try to look out for us."

"Hmph..." The dark-haired girl quirked a half smile. "You're certain you're not just projecting?"

Eight tilted his head, a puzzled expression coming to his face. "You don't think so?"

"Eight," she addressed him firmly. "Have you ever felt alone in your ideal? As if not even Class Zero could pierce the depths of your solitude?"

"...I see."

It was perhaps the cruelest thing she'd ever done, but she knew Eight could take it. Besides, the boy preferred open, pure honesty to masks.

"Queen?"

She looked at him again.

"Thanks anyway."

}-{

She could have gone by airship. In fact, it had been the original plan of action to do so, but last minute adjustments had pushed for more operatives and Queen, ever the martyr, thus opted to take the ground route. The squad she left with was provided with chocobos and coordinates for the assault as well as a day's lead on the airborne squadrons.

Of course, going by land meant going through Meroe.

The region was still a far cry from recovery. Queen wondered if a memorial would be erected someday or if the world would simply hope to forget the horrors of war in the years to come. The earth was soft, and tiny blades of grass could be seen poking up through the ruin here and there. Spring was returning to breathe life into the world. Whatever had happened in its absence, the season was determined to run its course in the wake.

On the far side of the region, fields of red rock roses could be seen swaying in chorus.

}-{

On the grave of Kurasame Susaya, withered first blooms were taken away and replaced by more, inspired by the presence of their predecessors. Even if their radiant glory had passed for the season, their purpose was not forgotten. Even as petals lost their hue and passed to the wind, new buds bloomed to bring brightness to a world of hardship.

From but a few seeds, Orience seemed to look up from the ruin. And though the sky turned red, the flowers still swayed with their heads held high.

Someone had dared to hope.

 **-}End[11]{-**

 _Author's Notes:_

 _Okay, mayhaps it was a tad abstract, but it was still somewhere in the ballpark I was shooting for. Coincidentally, I'm currently listening to the Flower soundtrack as I write this. I feel like Queen is a fine balance between refined and cultured and just plain straightforward honesty. While Seven is quietly warm and nurturing, Queen is more on the tough-love side of the continuum. She's not trying to be condescending, even if she comes across that way, she's just trying to be the realist of the group and fill whatever role they need. Considering her combat style is a highly adaptable, support oriented mix, I feel like Queen putting others needs before her own and sacrificing even her own self expression fits as a possible outcome. Part of the idea behind this story was balancing all that Queen does for others with another side of her that she can't validate as relevant enough to share._

 _The ideas of flowers and new life may be seen as an allusion to the coming next cycle of Orience, but I would rather look at them as a harbinger of the age to come. The helianthemum nummularium was chosen on the fly, but actually seems to fit the bill well enough. I wanted a red flower to fit with the colors of Rubrum, but having it be a sunflower, and a particularly short lived bloom to boot, definitely were perks. Also, rock roses apparently are one of those rely-on-wildfires-to-crack-open-seed-pod type flora, so there's an additional layer right there. The only inconsistency you may note is that helianthemum nummulariums tend to only bloom in the summer. In my defense though, Rubrum is listed as being regionally associated with summer on the Final Fantasy wiki AND the battle at big bridge probably lent some artificial hastening to mix._

 _Anyway, thanks for reading one more. Twelve Shots of Summer has only one week more to go, so you should catch it while it's still in season! If you're looking for more quality fan fiction to cram into your last days of summer, head over to the TSoS C2 or Forum and see if you can find something to suit your fancy._

 _Just one more week to go. Thanks for sticking with me._

 _-CG_


	12. 12-Learning to Die

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[12]Learning to Die**

 _-[King, Alternate-Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Second Raid week 12: The Legacy Lives On]_

 _Author's Note: In order to preserve the theme and artistic direction of the work, the author would like to again remind his audience that certain pieces of canon universe rules are being bent or ignored, namely those concerning phantoma. If you have an issue with this bending, the author would like to apologize but also ask you to consider the reasoning behind the bend rather than the alteration itself. If this collection helped you to think and feel about the themology of Final Fantasy Type-0, then regardless of the change, the author has done his job. Thank you for reading, and may you enjoy the Twelth Shot of Summer: Learning to Die._

 _-CG_

"I won't be able to revive you from this one. If you go against the Rursus, there won't be any coming back."

Despite the gravity of the warning, Mother seemed as calm as ever. The war was over, Rubrum had triumphed, and the world was now coming to an end. _Perhaps there are benefits to not finishing your enemies after all_ , King reflected with grim humor. Apparently Rubrum controlling all four crystals was the tipping point that had brought Tempus Finis.

 _When nine and nine meets nine, the depths of reason shall stir. When the seal of creation is broken, a voice like thunder shall sound. And thou shalt know, we have arrived_.

It was a prophecy written in the Nameless Tome. Most scholars had thought the passage was referring to Agito, the savior who would rise up to deliver the people from Tempus Finis, the apocalypse. The scholars who hadn't been slaughtered by the Rursus now knew better.

"What? Why not?" Cinque frowned put a hand to her chin. "Like, is it against the rules or something?"

"After a fashion, darling," Mother sighed, tapping ash from the end of her cigarette. "You see, Rursan blades destroy phantoma."

Half of Class Zero seemed to stop breathing. King took that to mean they understood the implication.

Queen was the first to respond. "But phantoma... isn't that the essence of life? Our _souls_?"

King couldn't remember the last time he heard Queen's take that edge.

"That's a partial interpretation, yes," Mother allowed, matching gazes with the younger woman. "But phantoma is better understood as an immaterial binding for the soul rather than the soul itself. It takes upon unique properties and grows with the soul through different experiences. In fact, phantoma is so essential to anchoring a soul that the two become like puzzle pieces for one another over the course of an individual's formation, which is why phantoma transfusion has by and large failed in the past."

"Great, so its only our soul binding at stake," Sice butted in. The silver haired anti-socialite crossed her arms and looked to the side, as if she didn't want to face Mother while voicing her objections. "So what happens to our actual souls then? Not that it really matters at that point."

"Of course it matters." Ace, more determined than annoyed, was sorting out his battle deck. Apparently Mother's warning had not dissuaded him from facing the otherworldly Rursan Reavers. "Even if we all make it through this, what about those who won't?"

"Yeah? And what'll you do if it isn't such a pretty picture?" Sice countered. "I sure as hell hope you're already gonna be giving your best out there, Ace. Because if you're holding back just 'cause you're not motivated enough—"

"'Course he won't," Jack interrupted smoothly. The boy took a moment to run a hand through his hair. "Up the sleeve or in the hole, he's still gonna be the same broody, dogmatic, Ace. There's nothin' to worry about, he'll run like clockwork till the clocks stop ticking at all."

"If that was supposed to be a compliment..." Queen adjusted her glasses and grimaced, "I'm afraid Tempus Finis is getting to you."

"Alright, fine, so we're toast, butter-side down," Cater said, flicking her pistol chamber back and forth with her thumb. The fire in her eyes told King more than enough about what was coming next. "But that's only _if_ the Rursans can pin us in the first place. Anyone else feel like testing those odds?"

"Statistically speaking, we don't have any odds to test," Trey pointed out. "The Rursan invasion has been going on for the last twelve hours, and yet we haven't received a single report of successful retaliation. If anyone has succeeded, it is likely they died in the process."

"So in other words," Seven gave the scholarly archer a measuring look. "A zero percent success rate."

"...I'll take it with you." Eight spoke up. The ginger haired pugilist put his fist into his opposite hand and shook a frown. "What does it matter that we made it through the war if we can't fight our final battle?"

Nine joined the shorter boy with a solid slap on the back and a grin. "Yeah! Besides, those odds can only get better from here, hey! Since when have we ever been cowards, yo?"

"Even if nobody else can do it, we have to try," Deuce tugged at her crimson scarf as she looked out the window. "Everything we've done up until now has only been leading to this moment, to becoming Agito."

After taking another drag from her cigarette, Mother looked at the one member of Class Zero who had yet to speak. "King?"

The taciturn gunner shrugged. "Can't sit around doing nothing, right?"

 _You taught us better than that_.

Mother's eyes squinted slightly in a knowing smile before she nodded. "I'll be waiting then."

}-{

"What else could we have done?"

Eight shook the dark goo that Rursans passed for blood from his knuckles and caught his breath. The obsidian floor beneath them absorbed the substance without discernible change. They were in the heart of the beast now: Pandaemonium, the Temple of Finis. The Rursan Arbiter had issued them a series of crucibles upon arrival that required they split into two groups, six to a side.

"Dunno," King was taking the hard earned moment of respite to reload. "End of the world ain't something you can run away from, huh?"

"Yup, it's do-or-die this time," Cater, fishing spare cartridges from her boots, tried to smile. She slipped instead and landed with a muffled half-curse. "There's no backin' down. We were born for this," she continued, rising to her feet and dusting herself off.

Jack looked back for just a moment before pushing through the doors to the next chamber. "I don't know about that, Cate," the katana-wielding blond called back. As a first in a lifetime experience, it was slightly unnerving to hear a hint of weariness in his tone. "Could be that this is a do- _and_ -die sort of deal. I mean... there's only one Agito, right? So what happens to the rest of us along the way?"

"Who knows?" If King didn't know Seven, he would have taken the whipmaiden's apparent ambivalence the same way he took the break in Jack's normal persona. "Maybe even Agito needs a little help at the end of the world. We're only human."

On the other side of the doors, King could see a gallery over looking the ruins of Rubrum. Try as he might, he was having trouble remembering who was waiting for them at the end of all this.

"We should hurry," King stated calmly, walking down the hall with his eyes ahead. Waiting wasn't going to help anything.

Jack gave him a funny smirk as he passed. "So... you're not afraid to die?"

King gave his junior a flat expression. "I'll think about it when we finish."

Right now, just like any other mission, he wasn't really thinking about dying. Somehow, it didn't feel like quite the right place to reflect.

"King's right," Cater seconded. "We don't have time to get all sentimental. We've got some heroics to pull."

"Can't argue with that." Eight tapped his knuckles together again and took a deep breath. "Bring it on."

}-{

Despite their words, King could still sense the nagging doubt in the air. There was something unnerving about knowing you would be forgotten. King didn't personally claim to understand it. His mortality was something he'd never struggled with simply because he'd never seen it as relevant. People died. Maybe nobody remembered, but what did the dead care? There were all sorts of things demanding to be done when you were alive. It was important to do those things when you had the chance.

For his part, King had always been a minimalist. He never took on more than he felt comfortable with and never said more than he felt was obvious. He made every shot count and only struck when opportunity had reached its greatest potential. And yet, for all his careful practice, he'd never considered what he was practicing for other than to stay alive another day.

Outside Pandeamonium, it was looking increasingly unlikely that Orience would see another day.

Life was being sought, and death stood in the way. King didn't know how to conquer death, nobody did. He'd used the deaths of others to stay alive on the battlefield, but he hadn't mastered death itself.

 _What does it mean to die?_

King closed his eyes for a moment as they trudged on down the path of trial. If the whole of history had never answered the question, then what chance did he have of solving it?

Opening his eyes, King put one foot in front of the other and kept marching through the thread of life while approaching death's needle.

Answers would come. They always did. If he couldn't find them, he didn't need them.

Holding his head a little higher, King marched on.

}-{

"Are... we up for this?"

The battle seemed to be dragging on forever. Rursans were pouring into the chamber in droves, and it was all King could do to hold back his side of the onslaught. The Reavers were tough, but not invincible. With the right set of hits, they would fall pretty quickly. The real problem was that they kept coming back unless their phantoma was harvested.

The harvesting of phantoma was a task left mostly to Class Zero by Mother. King had never questioned it in the past, but after the revelation in Mother's chamber earlier, he was beginning to wonder exactly what it meant that he was gathering the substance.

Especially since gathering it from the Rursans was making him feel heavy.

"Just hang in there," Seven returned. Her acrobatic sweeps and spins seemed a bit off though. King wondered if the phantoma was affecting her too.

Fighting the Reavers was essential, harvesting their phantoma was essential, dealing with the fatigue that followed... King shook his head. _How long can we keep this up?_

Then, in a flash of crimson, the room was cleared of its reaver audience.

In the midst of the six cadets, Deuce fell too her knees with shaking hands.

"Deuce?" Jack, wiped at his forehead and gave their classmate a concerned look. "Hey, you alright?"

"It... hurts."

"What does?" Seven asked, coming down beside the youngest member. "Deuce... what did you do?"

"Their phantoma... I destroyed it," the flute girl explained. "They're... they're all the same. Have you noticed? Their phantoma is all identical. So I thought, if there's a resonant frequency for solid things, why wouldn't phantoma also have something like that?"

"You targeted their phantoma before weakening them?" Cater balked. "I mean... thanks for the rescue and all, but Deuce... isn't that a little reckless?"

Deuce closed her eyes and breathed deeply. King could understand. It was a bold move. Rather than collecting the corrupted phantoma, Deuce had cut straight to the heart of the matter and somehow destroyed it instead. In a way, it made him jealous.

However, it also seemed to have a toll of its own on the girl. Whether it was the energy necessary to complete the maneuver or something more sinister, King couldn't say.

Still, the destruction of the army of death was nothing to be scoffed at.

"Good work, Deuce," King intoned softly, putting a hand on her shoulder as he passed. "But don't try it again anytime soon."

 _What good does it do to win if you're not around?_

The brunette flute girl gave a small nod and, with Cater's help, got to her feet again.

}-{

"Know what I miss?" Jack asked, leaning on his blade hilt. He was trying to hide it behind a smile, but King could tell the battles were starting to wear on the boy. "I miss the days when you guys would roll your eyes at my jokes. Now adays, you just sort of give me that sad look."

"I miss the days before the war," Deuce answered. The brunette was occupied with healing what she could of Eight's wounds from the last fight. "Back then, this all seemed sort of like a game."

"A game..." Cater's snort somehow lacked the derisive edge King would have expected. "Yeah... I guess I never outgrew that. Too bad, huh? All this time, I thought the rest of you were worrying about stuff we didn't need to worry about. Maybe I was the one that needed to grow up."

Deuce looked up at the gun-mage and tilted her head. "What are we growing up to though? If we inherited this world, what would we do with it?"

"Is 'live in peace' an option, or did I miss something?"

"Jack," Seven shook her head slowly. "It's more complicated than that. We weren't raised for peace."

Cater sighed and kicked at the stonework. Her boots squeaked in their futile attempt to scuff the marble of the judgment palace. "What, so we're stuck fighting the rest of our lives?"

"Well... no, I didn't mean that..."

"You mean, after a lifetime of being raised to become Agito and deliver the world through bloody turmoil, there's going to be an awful lot of pieces to pick up," Deuce said softly. The youngest member's insight seemed to leave her classmates dumbstruck for the moment. "I understand. We're fighting to put away all that we've had to become. Isn't it ironic though? That we're trying to pave the road to life with bricks of death?"

After waiting a beat to see if someone else had something they wanted to get off their chest, King executed another reload and made for the doors. "Story's not over yet."

The half-cough chuckle that Eight responded with was reassuring in the sense that it signaled he was still alive. "Yeah... no giving up yet." The ginger-haired boy struggled to his feet and gave King a wincing grin. "C'mon, we've still got something to prove."

}-{

"You are unworthy of becoming Agito."

The Rursan Arbiter made his pronunciation without hesitation.

"The world you fight for is dying. This spiral of hatred, desperation, despair... what can be done to end it? What do you offer to the broken? What do you understand of the death you perpetuate?"

If King were alone and not fighting just to breathe, he might've tried to take issue with the accusation. As it was, he had the rest of Class Zero, still alive at the end of the trials. It wasn't King's job to offer the defense, it was his job to look for an opening.

"Orience as a whole," the Arbiter continued. "The world has grown rotten. Not one soul remains that could possibly hope to achieve Agito. Death is all you have. The death of hope, death of reason, death of living memory. And yet, you still don't understand it. Perhaps I should make such miserable things as you simply disappear."

"Maybe you're right," Ace answered, slowly fanning out his cards before the Great Rursus. "Maybe we have forgotten. There's so much in this world that passes on without notice. And yet... I can still feel the weight of it all."

 _You can't feel,_ The Arbiter seemed to deny him.

"Even if we can't remember the sacrifice, it still mattered."

 _You can't remember_.

"If we have to die to bring about a world of life, then it is an amiable effect to be the cause for."

 _You can't cause._

"There's still so much to learn, so many lives that have room to grow."

 _You can't learn._

"Yeah! Don't be such a meanie! There's a new world just waitin' to show up once we're done!"

 _You can't start over._

"The future isn't written yet, there's still a chance that we can change."

 _You can't hope._

"And through everyone else, the people of this world, we'll make eachother stronger."

 _You can't trust._

"The strength to live even when everything you know is crumbling down... we've proven we have it!"

 _You can't undo._

"We ain't gonna roll over just yet, yo! I ain't givin' up just to go the easy way, hey!"

 _You can't survive._

"It'd be a shame to build this far without coming to the right punchline. We've still got a job to do."

 _You can't complete your work._

"The world has chosen life despite our sins. Beneath these scars, a new life is already stirring."

 _You can't choose._

"We won't let you take that future away," King pronounced, glaring at the looming Rursus through his handgun sights.

 _You can only die._

Despite their words, King felt doubt seeping in, threatening their resolve. It was as if the air had become heavy. His muscles twitched, threatening to betray him. Somewhere inside, for the first time in a very long time, King was afraid.

"Fools. Even now you don't understand," The Rursan Arbiter leveled an accusing finger at Ace, the head of the company. "You can't hope to best me after the trials you've endured. This is not a riddle that may be solved with war. My judgment withstands, you know nothing but death. Your phantoma, the same warrior's phantoma that I carry within me, is moored in destruction. Unless the world be rid of this, the only way through the gate to the future is through the purging of this imperfection."

"...What did you say?" Slowly, King lowered his weapons. Had the Arbiter just admitted to having the same base nature as Class Zero? Was he anchored to this world by the same things that shaped the Agito cadets? Had their way of life, their focused, fearless mission, been leading them to death all along?

For the first time in forever, King wondered what it meant to die.

"So... you're the spirit of war," Ace said after a moment. "You're all the death Orience has brought on itself."

 _How are we supposed to beat something like that?_ King narrowed his eyes at their foe.

"Perhaps we can't become Agito, but we still have a duty to the people of this world."

"...Ace?" The usual frown set on King's lips deepened. That should have sounded reassuring. Why did he have a feeling the boy was about to do something he shouldn't?

Raising his left hand, two streams of red lifted into the air, following the card bearer's motion like a beacon. One sprang from the Arbiter, and one from Ace himself.

"Hey, Ace!" Cater grabbed his arm and shook it. "Snap out of it Ace, the phantoma your targeting—"

"I know. We all say goodbye sometime."

A thunderclap resounded through the room. The Arbiter howled and grasped at his shoulder as plumes of pale green poured out.

In the midst of Class Zero, Ace fell to his knees.

"Ace!" Cater, still holding his arm, tried to drag him to his feet, attempting to deny what had just occurred. "Ace, you can't do this to us! C'mon, we're supposed to become Agito! We're supposed to make this right!"

Deuce, clasping her hands to her chest, looked up at the looming Arbiter as another set of red strung through the air. "It's time... we laid this to rest."

Another resounding boom and the Arbiter's shriek redoubled.

"Deuce!" Cater reached for the brunette, helpless to stop what had already been done.

Ever the professional, Queen staggered forward next. "I understand," she said, adjusting her glasses one last time. Her breath was ragged, but her composure was as regimented as ever. "Our phantoma is resonant with composite pieces of your own. However, even if we cannot weaken you enough to harvest it, we can still destroy it by targeting the resonance itself."

"You wouldn't dare," the Arbiter gritted out. "You don't know what lies—!"

"I know I am more than my phantoma," Queen answered, raising her hand. "That will have to be answer enough for me."

The Arbiter's right arm contorted as more phantoma misted from it.

"Well... it's a poor joke," Jack sighed. "But we can't let you have the last laugh, now can we?"

Clouds of pale green were wreathing the Rursan's body.

"I don't get it, yo!" Nine shouted, "What's goin' on, hey?"

"We're... putting down the spirit of war," Sice answered hesitantly. "I... I can remember that much."

Another crash. The Arbiter arched and writhed.

"Damn it all!" Cater cursed, tears were forming in her eyes as she looked to King. "You mean all this fighting we've been doing...?"

"Yes, we're the cause, and he's the effect," Trey stated calmly. "This is our final mission. Let us do what only we may do."

Cinque started to cry. "I don't wanna die! I'm scared! What if... what if there's nothing there?"

"No, there has to be something," Seven tried to sooth the girl as she too grasped at linked phantoma. "It's said the souls of the dead pass into the unseen world through Etro's Gate, that same gate that the Rursans were trying to open. Gates don't lead to nowhere."

The Arbiter was clawing at his chest when his left arm stiffened.

"Tch! Fine, punk!" Nine went next. "You wanna use all this skill I been building up just to ruin the world? I don't think so!"

"I've trained my whole life to preserve the lives of others," Eight said, forcing himself to his feet. "I'm not about to give that up now!"

King just watched, frozen in the horrible revelation of what was happening.

"What's... wrong?" The Arbiter managed to spit at the last three members of Class Zero. A grotesque laugh shivered through his monstrous form. "Will the last of Class Zero... refuse to complete their mission?"

"...!" Cinque's tears paused and she looked to her remaining classmates. "I... I remember!"

"Remember?" King asked slowly. What was this now?

"Everyone else! I still remember them!" Cinque went on, waving her arms to encompass the battlefield where their siblings had sacrificed themselves. "They're not gone!"

"Y-your right!" Cater gasped. "Which means..."

"They're not dead yet?" King tilted his head. What? How could they...?

"Alright... you big dumb meanie," Cinque said, lifting her own hand. "I'm comin' for ya!"

After Cinque fell to the ground, Cater and King exchanged a solemn look.

"So... this is it, huh?" the gun-mage asked. She put Ace down and struggled to her feet to face their final foe. "King... We had a good run. See you... again?"

And just like that, it was just King and the Arbiter staring at eachother across the field of the fallen.

"Fools... wasting your lives for a world such as this..."

King fought down a grimace of pain. "They weren't wasted."

"Unless you can slay me, your judgment is made in vain," The creature stated. "You who have not learned what they have learned. You don't understand the worth of life. Like all humans, you are so lost that you cannot hope to enter the unseen realm beyond."

"Maybe not," King admitted. Still the gunner raised his hand. He focused on all the hurt, despair, and everything that had filled the chamber not too long ago. He focused on the spirit of war. It felt as if something cold locked away inside him that he hadn't even been aware of until this moment was being lifted out.

"Insect! You didn't understand how you were to live, so you're choosing how to die?"

"I lived for this moment," King sighed. His fingers began to tighten. "Everyone brought me this far."

 _Now all that's left is to let go._

}-{

The red sky of Tempus Finis faded from living memory. The horror of the Rursus, of the war, it all seemed to wash away as if the darkness of malice itself had been lost in the storm.

And yet, in that age, people began to remember. Like sunlight streaming over the horizon after the longest of nights, memories of those who had come before trickled back into the world. The time of the Crystals was over, and a new era for humanity had begun; one guided by the wisdom of those who had gone before.

That spring, in the Akademia cemetery, twelve graves were laid with flowers. Some said that the graves were empty, that those they belonged to had never been recovered. It was a shame, the records claimed those twelve to be heroes of the war, lost in a final undisclosed mission.

To those that really knew the story, the age of peace and the twelve graves went hand in hand. For those twelve, those who had been known as Class Zero, were undoubtedly linked to the end of the spiral of war and the rebirth of the land. Even without the light of the Crystal they had once served, their memory would be etched into the stonework of time.

Twelve students, who had once been trained in the art of death, had brought life to Orience.

 **-}End[12]{-**

 _Author's Note:_

 _While this wasn't the easiest piece to write (there are so many ways all of this could be taken wrong), I feel like it's the natural capstone to the collection. I hope that certain questions, such as what happened to Class Zero afterwords, have been shadowed enough that my readers may come to their own conclusions. If you are dissatisfied, feel free to discuss it over PM. Just know that I do not condone or encourage suicide, and that this was not meant to be taken._

 _The bending of the rules of phantoma for this piece definitely play a part in understanding the ultimate fate of Class Zero. Of course, those who know a miracle when they see it can also make a few conjectures about how Class Zero was able to overcome the traditional rules of harvest laid out in the game. Perhaps it was personal preference, but I thought phantoma as the direct soul was a little too simplified. Having it be a substance, a medium that connects the supernatural to the natural, not only felt more right for its in game functions, but also gave better artistic direction for this ending piece._

 _Now for King... King is the sort of guy who won't do anything he doesn't have to. He never walks faster than necessary, holds a move for more than an instant, or even speaks up unless he really needs to. In this piece, I wanted to use that in the sense of understanding what Class Zero must do to defeat the Rursan Arbiter (who many consider to be among the most rigged boss fights of Final Fantasy)._

 _I know this was heavy. But I thank you for sticking with it to the end. However, just as the world lived on after the death of war, observant readers may find hope to believe that Class Zero lives on after these events. In the words of Firion of Fynn, "This is not the end, a new dream is waiting to begin."_

 _Thank yous are in order for Aviantei and Vampuric Spider, my two faithful reviewers who have carried me so very far. LacieOrAlice, thank you for joining in for the last hurrah. Everyone who favorited or followed, I hope you have enjoyed this adventure through Orience with me._

 _Oh, and with Twelve Shots of Summer wrapping up, I encourage you once more to check out all the wonderful work that has come out of this project, especially that of Amulet Misty, the wonder kid. If you enjoyed any of these stories, please drop by the Twelve Shots of Summer Forum to vote in the Last Rose of Summer poll to make sure your favorites get some recognition._

 _Lastly though, I would like to dedicate this collection to Thescarredman, a fan fiction writer who taught me a lot about self-confidence, character exploration, and just writing a fan fiction worth reading. His work in the Gunslinger Girl Fandom, particularly_ In Somniis Verum _is very much responsible for inspiring this work._

 _Thank you for the memories. May you go with God,_

 _-CG [22AUG15]_


	13. 13-For You, My Children

**Suzaku Memorium: Memories Etched in Crystal**

By Chronic Guardian

 **[13] For you, My Children**

 _-[Arecia Al-Rashia, Post Cycle] [Written for Twelve Shots of Summer: Trinity Limit week 11: For the Ones Who Couldn't Make it/Gardening]_

 _-I-_

 _Choked sunlight begins to broaden,_

 _As the world resumes to breath,_

 _And a long weary path once well trodden,_

 _leads to those who at last took their leave._

 _-II-_

 _Twelve seeds once cut off from the world,_

 _And fenced in my garden to grow,_

 _Twelve bodies now lying lifeless and curled,_

 _Who gave their life blood to sow,_

 _-III-_

 _An age that no longer needs them,_

 _A world that forgets who they are._

 _A peace that at last won't be broken,_

 _Twelve memories whose love shine like stars._

 _-IV-_

 _My children, please know that I loved you,_

 _Although I raised you for war._

 _You were the hope left that shined through,_

 _The failed ages long burning like scars._

 _-V-_

 _I once held your hand while dying._

 _I watched as the sky met the shore._

 _I gave up on the world while once trying,_

 _To keep you right here where we are._

 _-VI-_

 _It's cruel to say I could save you,_

 _For I am but a gardener of fate._

 _If I could, I would fight, too,_

 _But my part in this tale was to wait._

 _-VII-_

 _My heart has been endlessly broken,_

 _I loved, and then lost, and then tried,_

 _to respeak the words I have spoken,_

 _To those who already have died._

 _-VIII-_

 _My children, I raised you as weapons,_

 _I sharpened your hearts 'til mine bled._

 _You silenced cold metal cannons,_

 _But the blood on your hands was still red._

 _-IX-_

 _The circle, now it is fading,_

 _The darkness beyond is unsure._

 _I see a light that is coming,_

 _A peace beyond centuries of war._

 _-X-_

 _There is a safe place in Rubrum,_

 _Where twelve seeds, once raised for death,_

 _Saved many lives to forget them,_

 _But still held them close to their chests._

 _-XI-_

 _My children, I see you have left me,_

 _You've gone on ahead now, beyond._

 _Through the heavenly gate over soft seas,_

 _To slow flowing rivers and ponds._

 _-XII-_

 _In that place now is your ending,_

 _Your promised triumph creeps through my pain._

 _My god is a god of the living._

 _At my ending, we will meet again._

 _-XIII-_

 **For All Those Who Were Lost,**

 **These Valiant Hearts and Souls,**

 **And These Memories Etched in Crystal,**

 **Rest in Suzaku's Memorium**

 **To Awaken Someday Beyond the Gate**

 **This Reunion is for You.**

 **-}End [13]{-**


End file.
